


Dulce Et Decorum

by ETraytin



Series: Seculo Seculorum [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The West Wing
Genre: Canon-Typical Abuse of Latin, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Minor Borderline Underage Platonic Romance, Seasons 1-5 West Wing, Seasons 1-7 Buffy, Slightly Twisted Canon, Starts pre-series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-10 21:33:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 41,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11700303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ETraytin/pseuds/ETraytin
Summary: In the summer of 1964, 21 year old Jed Bartlet graduates Notre Dame and takes up his family legacy by joining the Watcher's Council. His new Potential, 17 year old Abigail Barrington, quickly derails all his careful plans.





	1. Ipsos Custodes

**Author's Note:**

> I know, it's another WIP, but I swear it's a limited time only deal! I'm doing the Fic-A-Day challenge at Twisted Shorts, the Livejournal community for Buffy crossover site Twisting the Hellmouth. (I'm Etraytin over there, too!) It's a short little piece every day for the month of August, and I've had this idea sitting around in my brain for awhile. Let's see how it goes! Feedback is excellent and appreciated.

The sky overhead was partially blue that morning, with scudding gray clouds and a sun that shone intermittently through them to warm the earth below. This was about as beautiful as days in England got, as far as Jed could tell, and he wasn't about to miss the opportunity to take advantage. He loped across the stately old quad with jacket akimbo, stopping long enough to fling a gobbet of dirt at Quentin's window. 

It took only a moment for the window to open. “Oi!” Quentin protested, sticking his head out to glare at Jed, one floor below. 

Jed grinned up at him. “Oh pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxillars which then stood upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!” he called up, pressing his hands dramatically over his heart. 

Quentin rolled his eyes. “I suppose they've let you out early for the day, then? Off to charm the young ladies with a little poorly-rendered Wordsworth?” 

“It constantly amazes me, Quint, how you can be only four years older than me and such an old fuddy-duddy already.” Jed shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Don't you ever have any fun?” 

“I'm having plenty of fun,” Quentin insisted, “getting my translating work done so that Old Man Matheson doesn't tear strips off my hide tomorrow in the seminar.” 

“Well then let me help you,” Jed offered magnanimously, “and you'll be done twice as fast, then we can go out.” 

“Good Christ, no,” Quentin demurred with a shudder. “I still have yet to figure out how you caught that grimoire on fire last week. Besides, this isn't Latin or Greek, it's Early Brachen, and I fancy they didn't teach you any of that at Notre Dame.” 

“Well it can't be that hard,” Jed decided, never losing his grin. “I'm sure I'll pick it right up. Come on, Quint, surely you can spare an hour or two for supper at least? I'll bet you worked through lunch again without so much as a sandwich. And anyway, if you don't come out, I'll have to go by myself, with no experienced guide showing me around, and God only knows what trouble I'll get into...” 

“Americans are a pox upon the globe,” Quentin muttered loudly, but pulled his head back into the window and closed it with a thud. A minute later he appeared at the door, struggling into a rather poorly-fitted tweed jacket and fumbling with a pack of cigarettes. 

Jed swiftly moved to help him out, lighting a pair of smokes and passing one to his erstwhile tour guide. “It's not that I don't understand the impulse to study,” he told Quentin earnestly, taking an inexpert puff from his own cigarette. “I'm really looking forward to starting Watcher training as soon as possible! Look at me, I crammed all my studies at Notre Dame into three years just so I could come over sooner! But we have to live a little, don't we?” 

Quentin snatched back the pack of cigarettes and stuffed them into his pocket before taking a long drag off his own. “And because I'm in a translating mood, I'm going to translate that into 'I've finally escaped from my father's control for the first time in my life, and I want to get laid posthaste.'” 

Jed blushed and coughed on smoke. “I do not!” he insisted. “I'll have you know I was considering becoming a priest while I was at Notre Dame, and I still haven't ruled it out entirely. There's plenty of fun to be had without-” he coughed again. “you know, carnal pursuits.” 

“Well then,” Quentin told him with a sudden grin, “perhaps you haven't been pursuing the right sort of carnality. If you're going to be a Watcher, you have to be ready to delve into the seediest underbelly of society, cut through it like a shark, do whatever it takes to gather information and fight the forces of darkness! There are monsters out there who can sense virginity, you know. They'd be on you in a hot second.” 

“Hey, I never said-” Jed put up his hands in protest before subsiding with a sigh in the face of Quentin's obvious rightness. “I don't want to be that kind of Watcher, anyway. I plan on learning Early Brachen and Lesser Fyarl and all those other demonic languages and spend my life quite comfortably in the libraries, fighting evil by passing knowledge to where it'll do the most good. I'll let other Watchers swim through the seedy underbellies.” He made a face at that mental image. “Who knows, maybe one day I'll rise to head the Watcher's Council myself!” 

“Yes,” Quentin scoffed, “and perhaps one day I'll be the President of America. Come on, let's get something to eat so I can get back to work.”


	2. Alea Iacta Est

Jed shifted uncomfortably in his wingback chair, wishing he'd had time to put on a coat and tie after being summoned. He felt terribly underdressed in the button-down lambswool and leather sweater he'd been wearing in the library. “Sir, if this is about the grimoire,” he began tentatively. 

Old Man Matheson, or as he was properly known, Sir Winthrop Matheson, Head of the Watcher's Council and bearer of a number of titles Jed could not remember, barely spared him a glance. “Do quiet down a moment, Josiah,” he instructed, going back to the papers he was looking through. “Not everyone is here yet.” That didn't make Jed feel much better, but it did shut him up. He was pretty sure at this point that the old man was not concerned about a harmless magical accident, quickly cleaned up. Anything that demanded the attention of the Head Watcher, plus other unnamed individuals, had to be rather larger than anything a twenty-one year old Watcher candidate ought to be involved with at all. And Jed hated waiting. 

He wrapped his hands around the armrests of the chair and did his best not to fidget, counted the ticks of the loud grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Nothing like a grandfather clock, he decided, for lending gravitas to a room. His father had one as well, the better for intimidating wayward students. Every important office ought to have one, really. He wished he'd taken time for a smoke after being summoned, but Quentin had made it sound urgent. Of course, what Quentin Travers thought was urgent might not be quite the same as the priorities of the Watcher's Council as a whole. They definitely seemed to be taking their time today. 

Matheson looked up from his papers. “You got good marks from the Council's preparatory program at Notre Dame,” he said. It was not a question, but Jed nodded obediently anyway. “And in your classes as well. Summa cum laude, very impressive. But really, American Studies?” 

Jed forced himself not to squirm. “I felt that I could bring something different to the table in the Council's research department,” he offered. “With the two most active Hellmouths both located in the United States, we may see a sharp rise in the number of Slayers called there in coming decades.” It was an argument that had convinced his father anyway, and sounded a lot better than 'I didn't think I could get away with political science or economics but wanted to take classes in those things anyway.' 

The old man harumphed, leaving Jed unable to tell whether he approved or not. “The minor concentration in Theology is more standard, at least. I also see you received your physical defense training, basic instruction in swordsmanship and archery, and the rudiments of unarmed combat.”

“Yes, sir,” Jed agreed. He didn't think it necessary to mention he would never be called an honor student in any of those disciplines, and indeed he'd been lucky not to hurt himself with stake or bow or foil. Every Watcher was expected to know basic self-defense at least, but those who would not go into the field received little more in the way of training. They also served who only stood and waited, a service he was more than happy to resign himself to. Besides, Quentin and the fellows back at Notre Dame would never let him hear the end of it if he ran his own hand through with a fencing foil. 

“Excellent, excellent. Ah, here they are.” Several other men appeared at the door, all of an age with Mattheson, none of whom Jed recognized on sight. Not too surprising, really, he'd been in England less than a month, taking his evaluations and waiting for his formal training to begin. “With all that out of the way, we can move right along to discussing your posting.” 

Jed's eyes widened. “My... posting, sir?” 

“Indeed!” said Matheson, with a sort of false heartiness that Jed found far more disturbing than sternness would've been. “Quite an honor for one so young, to be charged with the guidance of a Potential.” 

“Damned near unheard of, in fact,” muttered one of the other men, sounding rather grumpy about the whole thing. 

“Me?” Jed repeated dumbly. “A Potential? But I want to be a researcher...” Somehow he'd always envisioned himself being far more eloquent when speaking to his superiors on the Council. Reasoned arguments and salient facts presented in the nick of time, rather than this sick drowning feeling as though he'd been caught in a really large bathtub drain. 

“We all want many things, Bartlet!” Matheson snapped, “but what are our desires when compared with the good of the world and the fulfillment of our duties? You will go where you are told and you will do as you are told, and in doing so you will help to safeguard the Earth entire. If you're unwilling to do that, I question your membership in the organization at all.” 

“No, no, nothing like that!” Jed insisted hastily. “You know my family, you know we've given our best to the Council for generations. If I'm called to serve, I'll gladly serve, but I do feel I ought to ask, why me?” 

Matheson subsided a bit when Jed fell back into line, some of his avuncular attitude creeping back in. “Well yes, it truly is an unusual situation. As you know, our general policy is to secure access to all Potentials for training and observation, with the methods varying according to the situation. Many times we find that acquiring custody of the girls is the simplest method, but this is not always possible or desirable. Indeed, in cases where the Potential's family is powerful or influential enough, getting access by any means is a tricky feat. We sometimes find ourselves forced to negotiate. Are you familiar with the Barrington family of New Hampshire?” 

“Senator Barrington?” Jed asked. “Yessir, I went to school with his son and two of his cousins. Very wealthy and well-connected. Is the Potential-” 

“His niece,” Matheson replied with a nod. “Apparently the girl's a bit of a late bloomer, she only came to our attention four months ago and she's just turned seventeen. Almost out of the latency phase, really, but as you yourself just mentioned, we cannot afford to ignore any of our American potentials. Luckily we did have an in on the situation in the form of your father. After discussion, we elected to read Mr. Barrington in on a very abbreviated version of what the Council is and does. He was willing to accept a Watcher for his daughter, but soundly rejected the experienced Field Watcher we sent out. He wants an American, someone trustworthy and from a good family. Your father volunteered you, and Barrington accepted. You'll be departing for the States tomorrow. Time is of the essence, obviously. Miss Kamau is currently discharging her duties admirably, but she has been in service well over a year already. We never know when the next Calling will be, and Miss Barrington must be prepared.” 

Jed stared at the Head Watcher, stunned and speechless. How could he train a Potential, when he'd barely had any training himself? A seventeen year old late discovery was unlikely to be Called, but what if she were and he'd done a bad job? What if he made a fool of himself? Had he really come all the way to England to join the Watcher's Council, only to turn around and do a job practically in his own backyard? As tumultuous as his thoughts were, the natural diplomat in him forced a pleasantly attentive look onto his face. “Yes, of course,” he heard himself agreeing. “I'll start getting ready right away. What's the girl's name, please?” 

“Miss Barrington?” Matheson rifled through his papers. “I believe it's Abigail.”


	3. Experto Crede

The dress was hot, much too hot for June in New Hampshire, and the lace decolletage was chafing the hell out of her breasts. None of this improved Abbey's mood in the slightest bit as she sat in the parlor and waited for the new Watcher to show up. She'd been glad when Daddy had sent the first one away. That Watcher had a smarmy smile and slimy eyes, looked like the sort of man who was entirely too comfortable with the dark places of the world. Despite all that he'd managed to be unbearably stuffy as well, harassing the housekeeper about her cooking, calling American things “colonial” and generally just bothering the hell out of everyone. Daddy had sent him packing and told the Council to try somebody with some manners next time, somebody from a good family who knew how things worked in New England. The Council liaison had told them he knew just the guy. 

Honestly, Abbey didn't know what to think about this whole Potential business. Yes, she could run faster than average, throw a ball like her brothers, and generally excel at any sport she tried, but that didn't seem much like a supernatural gift so much as being blessed with good genes. The stories the man from the Council told about divinely gifted protectors and sacred duties sounded like something right out of a dime fantasy novel. And yet she dreamed at night of girls fighting evil, strange vivid dreams that had her gasping to wake up, her fingers curled as though clutching a wooden stake. If accepting her “destiny” and taking the training would end the dreams of a thousand violent deaths, she was ready to start immediately.

Whatever else this new Watcher might have been, he clearly wasn't timely. The grandfather clock in the corner had already struck the quarter hour and was edging dangerously near to half-past, all without a car in sight in the broad circular driveway. Daddy had stepped out to take a phone call almost ten minutes ago, muttering something about how two strikes was enough. Maybe if the Watcher didn't show up then Abbey's dreams would give her a pass anyway, figuring she'd gave the whole thing a good-faith try? Probably not. She was just debating going and changing her clothes when a car finally pulled into the driveway. 

It wasn't exactly a prepossessing car, being more the sort that deliverymen and plumbers usually drove, rather than people who were guests at the Barrington home. It also seemed to be smoking quite a bit more than the typical sedan. The driver pulled up to the front of the house and got out hastily, throwing on his jacket in a very unusual way before turning toward the steps. He was...oh. Oh. 

Abbey realized she was staring only belatedly, when the new Watcher looked up and met her gaze. His steps stuttered to a half, and for a long moment they just stood ten stairs apart, gaping at each other. No slimy eyes on this one, and if he were even twenty-five years old she'd be incredibly surprised. As for his looks, well, if anybody had told her that Watchers could be so handsome, she might not have resisted the idea at all. 

The Watcher recovered his wits after a moment and finished ascending the stairs. He didn't smell too good, a bit like burning motor oil and panic, but Abbey thought she could forgive that, just this once. “Miss Barrington?” he asked. No English accent, either. “I'm Josiah Bartlet, from Manchester. My father and your father are friends, I believe.” 

“Call me Abbey,” she invited, putting her hand out to him with the palm turned so as to shake. When he accepted without a qualm, she decided that this could be the start of a beautiful relationship. “What happened to your car?” 

He scratched the back of his head. “Would you believe me if I said I'm not entirely sure? I spent the last month in England, so maybe something got into the engine while I was away? For a little bit I was sure I'd be taking the last two miles on foot, but here I am!” He gave her a winning smile. “And my friends call me Jed.” 

“Well then, Jed,” Abbey began, but was interrupted by her father, finally finished with his call and come to suss out the new Watcher. 

“What's the matter with your car, boy?” were the first words out of Daniel Barrington's mouth as he came to the edge of the broad front porch. “Is that why you're so late getting here?” 

“Terribly sorry, sir,” Jed began, launching into the sort of self-effacing and yet matter of fact description of his journey that marked him as a native New Englander. Abbey could almost see her father relaxing at the realization that this young man was one of their people, despite being attached to the Watcher's Council. 

“Never mind,” Daniel finally said with a wave of his hand. “Come inside and I'll have someone show you to your room. You're going to need a shower before you do anything else.” 

“Daddy,” Abbey protested with a laugh. “Don't be mean to the new Watcher, he just got here.” 

“It's quite all right,” Jed offered quickly, obviously hoping to score points with her father. “I really do need a shower."

Abbey rolled her eyes as she followed the men into the house, even as she couldn't resist a small grin. “Jackass,” she murmured under her breath.


	4. Non Semper Erit Aestas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this story isn't picking up much traction yet, but that's okay. Thanks to all of you who are reading, and triple-heartfelt thanks to those who have left kudos and reviews! :D

“No, no, it's just like holding a baseball bat. Choke up a little more and move in a smooth downward stroke-” Jed attempted to demonstrate with his own stake, then put his hand over Abbey's much smaller hand, manipulating her fingers into place. 

“Have you ever even held a baseball bat?” Abbey demanded. “That is nothing like the way you hold a bat.” She twirled her stake in her fingers and mimed the staking action, her own motions far more fluid. “Do you hold your baseball bat upside down and stab things with it?” 

Jed sighed. “That was obviously not what I meant. But the firmness of your grip, and the orientation of the thumb are vital if you don't want to lose your stake before withdrawing it from the vampire.” He switched his stake to the other hand and curled his empty fist to demonstrate the proper grasp. “Then as you bring the stake down and up again, you don't risk losing the stake.” He motioned up and down a few times. 

Abbey's eyes widened a bit at the demonstration. Just as he thought she was finally understanding the concept, she collapsed into helpless laughter. “I see,” she finally managed to choke out. “Just don't let my father or brothers catch you teaching me that gesture.” 

Jed looked at his hand in consternation, then snatched it away, hiding it safely behind his back. He could feel his face turning red. Training a Potential when he had only the bare minimal qualifications and no desire to become a Field Watcher had been bad enough. Discovering that his Potential was substantially more gifted than he in pretty much any athletic pursuit shouldn't have been entirely surprising, but it was still a bit galling. Letting her get away with being a bigger smart-ass than he would be completely beyond the pale. And the way she was grinning at him, pleased at putting him on the back foot, was making him feel things he had absolutely no right to be feeling about someone he was supposed to be Watching. 

* 

Abbey had written two pages of notes on Jed's afternoon lecture that day, mainly to cheer him up after the trouncing she'd given him at sword practice that morning. His lectures were a lot better than his swordplay, even if he did tend to go off on long tangents about economics and world history that had little to do with actually fighting monsters. This time his discussion of Fyarl demons had somehow wandered from “paralyzing snot” to the myth of Galatea and Pygmalion. Abbey knew just enough about that one to not need to wonder why it might be a favorite of Watchers. Briefly she thought about how it might feel to be a marble statue under his hands, letting him mold the shape of her body, warm her skin with his- 

She shook herself, hard enough to distract even Jed from his tangent. “But what if I don't have a silver blade?” she asked, desperate to bring him back on a safely disgusting topic. 

Jed frowned thoughtfully. “Well, you absolutely shouldn't be going forth without a silver blade if you're hunting Fyarl,” he pointed out. “Even if you don't have a very good one for fighting, everybody's got some sterling silverware laying around, right? My father keeps in his sideboard a carving knife manufactured by Paul Revere himself that would slice through a Fyarl like butter.” He grinned, the blithe and careless smile that made her just a little breathless. “Now granted, I might spend the rest of my life deep in hiding after my father found out, but the world would be safer from monsters.” 

“Truly a selfless sacrifice,” Abbey agreed, laughing. “You'd have to pack up your books and stakes and move deep into the mountains.” 

“I'm not sure I'd get along very well in the mountains,” Jed mused. “I don't know how to make moonshine and I've never played a banjo in my life.” 

“You'd do fine,” Abbey assured him. “You could sell the people chewing tobacco and salt pork, and everyone would call you Jethro.” 

Jed actually shuddered a little. “On second thought, a complete decapitation is also enough to fatally injure a Fyarl, but you must take care to saw between the armor plates in the neck...” 

*

“I have a feeling that if I could see myself right now, I'd die laughing,” Abbey muttered from her screened-off corner of the training room. “Just getting into a formal dress is bad enough, much less trying to conceal weapons or fight in one.” With a huff of frustration she hitched the long burgundy skirt of her gown to her waist, the better to yank the thigh holster for her stake into position. It felt a bit like wearing an improperly tightened tourniquet, but at least she couldn't see the line of the stake through the dress when she let it fall back into place. She liked the silver hair sticks quite a bit better, tucking them carefully into her upswept hair so as not to stab herself with the sharp points. “Who really fights vampires in formalwear, anyway?” 

“A Slayer never knows when she might be called upon to protect innocents from the darkness,” Jed reminded her sententiously. He wasn't even dressed up for this training session, still wearing his usual sweater and well-tailored chinos. “Given your family and your station in life, you'll probably spend a lot of evenings dressed up for parties and fancy events, so you'd better be able to fight...” He trailed off as Abbey came out from behind the screen, still fiddling with the sleeve of her gown. She looked up to see what had robbed him of speech and found him staring at her as though she'd just fallen from the sky. 

“Can you see the stakes?” she asked uncertainly, turning from side to side. He was silent, unmoving, staring at her with an unblinking scrutiny that was almost unnerving. “Jed? Is something wrong?” 

When he spoke it was only a whisper, his lips barely moving. “But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of the fair thou ow'st; nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou grow'st...” 

Abbey recognized the Shakespeare, had learned the sonnet in English class, but she'd never thought to recite it in just that way, pained and sad and almost frightened. “I don't understand,” she murmured. 

At once he was across the room to her, his hands locked around her arms in a grip that was nearly painful. “This is madness,” he told her urgently. “All of this, the training, the lessons, the weapons, it's all folly. You can't be Called, Abigail!” He gave her a little shake, painless but surprising, and she was startled to see tears at the corners of his eyes. “You can't be Called, I won't permit it! You're going to live a very long and happy life with no monsters.” 

She raised her own hands and placed them on his shoulders, gentling his grip on her. “I was under the impression that neither of us got much of a say in the matter,” she pointed out quietly. “But I appreciate the sentiment.” 

“Abbey, don't you understand?” he demanded, his voice thicker than usual. “If you are called, your lifespan goes from seven decades to perhaps seven years, if you are extraordinarily lucky and skilled. Most don't live nearly that long. You shouldn't have to do this, you deserve so much more from your life! I can't- how can I be party to any of this?” Jed turned away, scrubbing his hands over his face. “How could I possibly watch you die?” 

“I don't know,” Abbey admitted, folding her arms to put her hands where his had been. She sounded a little shaky, felt that way too. “But I think that's the reason you're here, isn't it? If I get Called, I get Called. It doesn't sound like the sort of thing I can pass up if I want to. But you're teaching me how to stay alive if it happens. I need that, Jed. I need you with me, okay? Please stay with me.” Her voice was softer now, little more than a whisper. 

He looked back at her, his face torn between anguish and tenderness. “Of course I will,” he promised. “No matter what happens.”


	5. Omnia Vincit Amor

Quentin picked up the phone when it rang, no small feat considering the wretched thing was buried under at least three layers of articles and hidden behind a weighty treatise on the courtship habits of ano-movic demons. He rarely received phone calls at home, so it hadn't seemed important until it began shrilling at him. “Quentin Travers.” 

“Quint, you rapscallion, you old so and so! How are things in merry old England?” came the entirely too cheerful voice over the phone. 

“Jed,” Quentin acknowledged, taking a moment to pinch the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “You're sounding exceedingly... chipper. To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Nobody should've been able to miss the sarcasm in his words, but Jed completely ignored it as he barreled along his conversational path. “Why shouldn't I be chipper, when the world is made new daily, the birds sing in the trees, the stars sparkle in the firmament, and the calendar marches relentlessly forward towards a better tomorrow?” 

Quentin pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to stare at it for a moment. “Jed, are you drunk?” He tried to figure out the time change between Oxford and New Hampshire, but left off when he realized it must still be mid-morning there. 

“Not at all!” Jed told him cheerfully. “I did, however, make a startling realization today, one that may well change the face of my future. Did you know that I have been on this assignment for ten full months now?” 

“That's your startling realization? Do we need to send you an official Watcher's Council calendar? I hear they got Mrs. Smythe-Carruthers to do the pinup this year, everyone's just chuffed about it.” Mrs. Smythe-Carruthers, apart from being an excellent research Watcher, was seventy-five years old if she was a day. 

That visual image was at least enough to bring Jed up short for a moment. “No, I don't think that'll be necessary,” he finally said. “We have calendars over here, I simply wasn't looking at them. But in just two short months, Abigail will be turning eighteen.”

“Yes, I suppose that's true,” Quentin agreed. “Once she's out of latency, she won't need a Watcher on hand anymore, and you'll have your life back on track, with a successful field assignment under your belt. I suppose that is worth some celebration,” he allowed. “Looking forward to coming back to the fold?” 

“No, no, that's not what I meant at all,” Jed replied dismissively. “Look Quint, I need your advice on an important issue of Watcher protocol.” 

“Shouldn't you be speaking with your supervisor about that?” 

“I will eventually, but right now I want to talk to you,” Jed informed him. “You, Quint, are ideally positioned to advise me in that you are immersed enough in the Watcher life to give me the counsel I need, while having no authority whatsoever to fire me.” 

Quentin's headache returned abruptly. “Oh good lord, Jed. What have you done?” 

“Nothing!” Jed protested vehemently. “Ah, that is to say, I haven't done anything just yet. It would be inappropriate, quite poorly done of me. Any information would be strictly hypothetical, for the future, or for the future of some hypothetical unnamed person.” 

“Just spit it out, Bartlet,” Quentin demanded. 

“Well, if you insist. Hypothetically speaking, what would the Council's stance be on a Watcher embarking upon a, hmm, a purely social relationship with a Potential he has trained, once she is out of her latency period? Would they frown on that?” 

“No,” Quentin groaned, leaning forward to tap his forehead against his paper-strewn desktop. “No, no, no, no, no.” 

“No, they wouldn't frown on it?” Jed asked hopefully. 

“No, you shouldn't do it!” Quentin erupted. “Jed, this isn't a matter of the Council slapping you on the wrist and telling you to behave. We've had scandals in our past that have seriously damaged our institutional credibility and cost us valuable allies. The behavior of Field Watchers with their Potentials or Slayers must be impeccable and above reproach, and the Council takes it seriously. Waiting until the girl is eighteen and one day isn't going to change anything. They'll cashier you, I promise.” 

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long minute. “And what would happen to her?” Jed finally asked, his voice quiet. 

“To the girl? Nothing, I imagine,” Quentin replied, a little surprised at the question. “Once she is no longer a Potential, she is no longer any official concern of the Council, except inasmuch as your behavior with her reflects on us. But don't tell me you plan to woo an eighteen year old girl from an excellent family as an unemployed ex-Watcher whose father has disowned him.” 

“My father would- yes, I suppose you're right about that.” Jed's voice was very heavy. “He hasn't understood me my entire life, can't expect him to start now. I'll just have to figure something out.” Underneath the heaviness now was resolve, a sort of steel Quentin hadn't really expected to hear from the young man. “I'm not going to let this stop me.” 

“Think it over, Jed,” Quentin advised sincerely. “If you care about your Abigail, the best thing may be to let her go and move on with both your lives. Nothing has happened yet, and nothing needs to. She'll make some brilliant match in America, and you'll have a brilliant career helping to save the world. It's for the best.” 

“No,” Jed told him, “I don't think it is. Your advice is solid as always, but you just don't understand. There comes a time in every man's life where he stands at a crossroads between what he wants to have and what he can't live without. I can't live without her, Quentin. She's it for me.” 

Quentin sighed. “Then I'll wish you luck, and remind you to save up your paychecks so you aren't homeless after they fire you.” 

“If they fire me, are you and I done as well?” 

That gave him a moment's pause. “No,” he finally said. “The Council may run my life, but it doesn't own me lock, stock and barrel. You can always call.” 

“Thanks, Quint,” There was warmth back in Jed's voice now, and relief as well. “You're a good man. They should put you in charge over there.” 

“Your mouth to God's ear, my friend.”


	6. Brevis Oratio Penetrat Coelos

Jed hung up the phone very quietly, staring out into the moonless New Hampshire night. The Barrington estate was large enough to have no close neighbors, making the darkness at 3am all but absolute. The pool of light cast by his desk lamp might as well have been the only illumination in the world, such a fragile light to be facing such immense darkness. He made himself look down and away from the window, and only then did he notice that his hands were shaking. He forced them still, forced himself to rise and gather the necessary supplies. There were things that had to be done. 

His cover as Daniel Barrington's personal secretary and biographer had gotten him unquestioned access to the house, as well as a small private bedroom on the end of the long second-floor hallway. His steps were silent as he walked that corridor now, counting doors in the darkness. One, two, three, and... here. He closed his hand around the knob, eased it open ever so carefully. Thank God that Abigail didn't lock her door at night. Jed had never been good with lockpicks. Stepping through the door, he shut it noiselessly behind him.

The bedroom was much warmer than the chilly corridor, the air smelling of cosmetics and faint perfume and the indefinable scent of Abbey. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could just make out the shape of her in the bed, curled up like an adorable pillbug with one fist tucked beneath her chin. He turned on the tiny lamp on the vanity before he woke her, hoping it would ease the disorientation and prevent him from getting punched. Her brow furrowed in sleep, lips moving into a pout at the intrusion of light. Jed was so intent on watching her face that he nearly forgot his task. Nearly. “Abbey,” he finally murmured. “Abigail, sweetheart, you have to wake up now.” 

Abbey groaned a denial of his request, rolling over to put her face down into the pillow. After a moment she seemed to process where she was and who was speaking to her. “Jed?” she mumbled drowsily. “What the hell are you doing in my room?” 

“Abbey, you need to wake up, it's very important,” he insisted. 

She sat up in bed, using her hands to check first the placement of her nightgown, then the status of her hair. With that done, she glared owlishly at him. “You understand that if my father catches you in here, he's going to go fetch his rifle.” 

Jed knew she was right, but that was the least of his worries tonight. “I just spoke with my friend Quentin at the Watcher's Council,” he told her, his voice strained. “Atiena Kamau is dead.” 

Abbey's face was blank for one sleep-clouded moment, then all the color left her face. “What does that mean?” she asked. “I turn eighteen next month, the chances...” 

“There's still a chance,” he told her. “Do you feel any different? Stronger? Have you had any strange dreams?” When she shook her head, his chest loosened enough that he could at least breathe again. “There is a ritual I need to perform on you. It will reveal... it will let us know for sure. We'll go to the chapel.” 

The Barrington family chapel had seen little use in recent decades, but was kept as meticulously clean as the rest of the expansive home. Jed, a devout Catholic, felt a little strange about using the room for ritual magic, but he'd reasoned to himself that as long as their efforts were turned towards protecting creation, God would surely approve. Tonight as they entered the chapel, he took a moment to say a prayer for the soul of the young woman who had just given her life protecting humanity. It felt as though he should do more, that there should be some recognition made by the handful of people who understood the sacrifice that had been made, but the needs of the living came first. Reaching into a cabinet under the row of stained glass windows, he took out his ritual implements and began laying them out. 

“Do I need to do anything?” Abbey asked, watching him work. She was still in her nightgown, and even with a bathrobe and slippers, she shivered in the cold. Jed thought that had to be a good sign. 

“Sit down in the center of the ritual circle,” he instructed, “in the lotus position. I'm going to anoint your brow and your hands, then cast a brief spell. If you have been Called as the Slayer, a painless red aura will form briefly around your body. If you remain a Potential, the aura will be green. It's important that you remain silent through the ritual and do not break the circle until it's complete.” 

Abbey nodded and sat down in the circle. Giving Jed a hard time during ritual magic was one of her favorite pastimes, he suspected mainly to watch him get flustered while doing something his Catholic soul wasn't entirely sure of, but tonight she was silent and acquiescent. He worked quickly, first setting out and lighting the candles, then mixing the fragrant oil he needed for the anointing. It didn't take much, just a few drops to reveal their fate. Her skin was warm and soft under his fingers, her pulse racing in the faintly visible blue veins as he marked her wrists. Just one more month, he thought over and over again. Not her, please God, not her. 

The spell was short and simple, a Watcher staple learned early enough in the training that even Jed had gotten it. The Latin flowed off his tongue like a prayer despite the dryness of his throat. Abbey sat motionless in the circle, her posture perfect, her eyes closed. If it weren't for the stiffness of her body, he'd have thought she might have fallen back to sleep. As he said the last lines of the spell, he dashed the last of the oil across his own wrists, signifying his binding to her, declaring his right to knowledge. He had to know.

For a moment, nothing happened at all. Jed wondered if somehow he'd done the spell wrong, then if somehow Abbey had ended her latency early. Did women who were too old to be called lose their aura entirely? Before he could wonder too much, a soft light appeared at Abbey's brow, pure white at first. It spread over her head and down her arms, following the path of the anointing, then spread across the circle to Jed's arms as well. As he watched, the aura deepened, took on first the tint of pond water in spring, then the deeper color of new leaves. A beautiful, life-affirming green. “Open your eyes,” he murmured. 

Abbey opened her eyes, meeting his gaze across the circle. He raised his arms to show her the color that surrounded her and watched as she seemed to melt with relief. “Green... it's green,” she whispered. “I get to live.” 

Jed broke the circle with one careless swipe, sending the aura winking out and bathing the room in near-darkness once more. Neither cared, they were too involved with wrapping themselves up in one another, hugging as though trying to become one inseparable entity. It wasn't proper, Jed knew, and he managed to restrain himself from the kisses he wanted to give her, but if he couldn't at least touch her in this moment, he'd surely die. He held her close, buried his face in her hair, and said a silent prayer for the girl somewhere who was not so lucky tonight.


	7. Mulier Est Hominis Confusio

The swing was Abbey's favorite place on the estate, tucked away as it was in the very back of the garden where nobody who didn't know it was there would ever find it. It was a perfect place to escape from one's own birthday party, if one happened to be so inclined, and to brood while idly pushing oneself back and forth with one foot. Her dress was itching again, and she idly wondered why she didn't have a single nice dress that didn't drip with lace. When she went off to college in the fall, she was buying new clothes immediately. 

The sound of footsteps on the gravel path caught her attention. She looked up to see Jed approaching, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, looking pensive. He broke into a smile when he saw her, but it wasn't the brilliant, devil-may-care smile she'd imagined him wearing on her eighteenth birthday. “So?” she asked. “How did it go with the Council?” 

Jed sat down on the swing next to her, falling automatically into her rhythm. His smile was crooked now, rueful. “Well, the good news is, Abigail, you are now being courted by a veritable man of leisure, with nothing to do but lavish time and attention upon your fair form.” 

She pursed her lips sympathetically. “Fired your ass, hmm?” 

“With a speed I found downright unflattering, really,” he agreed. “I barely got to finish my argument about how you clearly are no longer a Potential or under my tutelage. I never even reached the part where I never managed to teach you very much in the first place, impossible daydreamer that you are...” 

“Oh, I'm sure that would've changed their minds,” Abbey teased, poking him in the side. “You really are insufferable, you know. I can't imagine why they didn't fire you sooner.” 

“I was very far away,” he pointed out. “They barely got a chance to know me.” She laughed, which made him laugh too, if only for a moment. 

“So what are you going to do now?” she asked. “My father likes you quite a lot despite your intentions for despoiling his daughter. I imagine he'd hire you on to actually be his secretary and biographer if you wanted.” 

“It's tempting,” he told her, “but the woman I love is leaving this fall for the bustling metropolis of Boston and the den of temptation and sin known as Radcliffe. Heaven only knows what could happen to her there, all alone and unsupervised... they could elect you mayor!” 

Abbey rolled her eyes at him. “It's only a couple of hours away,” she reminded him. “And it's not as though you won't find plenty to do with yourself as soon as you start looking.” 

Jed averted his gaze again, looking adorably guilty. “If you must know, I may have already started shaking the bushes a little bit. I have an old friend at my father's school whose network of contacts can only be described as ridiculous. This woman proves every theory I've had about secretaries being the true power behind every executive. I gave her a call the other day when I saw which way the wind was blowing, and realized I was going to have to do something with the rest of my life. Mrs. Landingham, and I'm going to have to introduce you to her sometime, by the way,” he interrupted himself. “The two of you will get along like a house afire and I'll probably wind up president of a bank or something, never knowing what hit me. In any case, Mrs. Landingham made a few phone calls for me, I'm not sure where or to whom, she really does know everyone-” 

“For god's sake, Jed!” Abbey interrupted. “Just spit it out!” 

“I'll be starting at Harvard's School of Economics in the fall, in the graduate program.” His face was a study: part-proud, part-hopeful, part-sheepish. “It's an excellent program, one of the finest in the world. I might have attended even if there weren't other considerations...” 

“Jed! You're going to Boston!” Abbey threw her arms around him and nearly tipped them both off the swing. He automatically put his arms around his waist to steady her, leaving her all but sitting in his lap. “That's wonderful, that's perfect!” Both of us in the same city with absolutely no parental supervision...” She grinned at him, her face bare inches from his now. 

He gulped, his adam's apple bobbing visibly. “Yes, that's very true. Of course we'll still have to observe certain proprieties, we don't want to encourage gossip. We have to think about your reputation, our future careers...” 

“Jed, they already fired you over me, right?” she pointed out playfully, bringing her face even closer to his. “You may as well go for the sheep.” 

“The huh?” he asked, sounding rather dazed. 

“You know, may as well hang for a sheep as for a lamb? You've already been hung for the lamb, so what are you so afraid of?” With that, she closed the last distance between them, pressing her lips against his. He stiffened for a moment, surprise and an overly-developed sense of propriety rearing their ugly heads, but it only took a second before he was kissing her back. The kiss owed a lot more to enthusiasm than experience, a little bit awkward, a little overly damp, but Abbey barely noticed. After six months of waiting, it was plenty nice enough.

Jed's face was a sight to see when he finally pulled away, vague and confounded and vaguely goofy, as though he'd been hit upside the head with a tree branch but was okay with that. “I have to say, you're certainly the most attractive sheep I've ever seen.” 

“Oh Jethro, you sweet talker, you.” She giggled and fanned herself with one hand, only to be interrupted by another kiss. Apparently Jed was intent on remedying the lack of experience problem as soon as possible. Abbey found she had no complaints about that idea.


	8. Amicorum Omnia Communia

Jed's apartment in Boston was modest to say the least, a studio layout with just enough room for bed, desk, dresser, a small refrigerator and a hot plate. But it had its own bathroom with a shower and, most importantly, he didn't have to share it with anyone. With Abbey living in the strictly regulated dormitories at Radcliffe, this was the only way they got any privacy at all. Not that they took full advantage of it, but just getting away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of their schoolmates from time to time was imperative. 

They'd been courting for nearly a year by now, and Jed thought he was about to lose his mind with wanting her. Abbey herself was more than willing to take their relationship beyond what could be done with clothes on, claiming that it was the sixties and nobody was waiting for marriage anymore, but he was determined to at least put one ring on her finger first. A year-long courtship and then another six months till a wedding was the model of propriety in the circles they lived in, and he hoped it would erase any possible stigma people might attach to their relationship. But it was damned difficult to wait! If it had been up to him, he'd have found a little neighborhood church and married her in the sight of God and the priest, and to hell with the proprieties. Unfortunately, her father did have quite a collection of hunting rifles on his estate. 

School kept both of them very busy, which was probably for the best. Jed had enjoyed his studies at Notre Dame, but he absolutely loved his work at Harvard, immersing himself into economics with some of the brightest and most pedagogical minds in the field. There was nothing like going out for a beer and spending four hours talking about trade tariffs and the possibility of an oil crisis sometime in the next decade. Abbey was loving the premed program just as much, so even on those nights they couldn't be together, they were at least never bored. Tonight Jed was hip deep in a research paper he had high hopes of turning into a master's thesis when there was a knock on the apartment door. 

It wasn't Abbey, he could tell that right away. She'd taken to improvising musical riffs on his door when she bothered to knock at all, anything from Shave and a Haircut to her best Buddy Rich impression. This was three crisp, well-modulated knocks, as though from a knocking machine calibrated for meticulously precise knocking quality. Jed stood and went to the door, checking before he opened it to make sure the room wasn't in too slovenly a condition. He also drew a stake from his top dresser drawer, holding it concealed behind his arm just to be on the safe side. One could take the Watcher out of the Council... He opened the door. 

“Economics, really?” Jed gaped a little to see Quentin Travers' sardonic half-smile on the other side of the door. “Could've done anything in the world, and you chose to go back to school for maths, of all things.” 

“Quint!” Jed opened the door wider, as pleased as he was surprised. “You're about the last person in the world I'd have expected to turn up at my front door. What are you doing here?” He stepped back from the door to allow the Watcher room to pass, then casually dropped the stake back into its drawer when Quentin did so easily. 

“I'm on assignment, I'm afraid,” Quentin told him with a sigh, taking a look around the tiny apartment, then taking the chair when Jed offered it. Jed himself sat on the corner of the bed. “I just arrived in town last night.” 

“Assignment?” Jed asked, puzzled. “You're not saying the Council wants anything to do with Abbey and I anymore, are you?” Concern furrowed his brow, but he really couldn't see any reason the Watchers would concern themselves with an ex-Watcher and ex-Potential quietly going about their mundane lives. 

“Oh no, you're off the hook,” Quentin assured him. For a moment, he looked almost bashful. “I'm on field assignment, actually. I've been assigned a Potential.” 

“Really?” Jed asked, his face lighting up. “And she's somewhere nearby? That's amazing! We'll practically be neighbors, then. Have you met her yet?” 

“Not yet, she's actually living in Connecticut, in Westport,” Quentin explained, taking the beer Jed dug out of the refrigerator for him. “The family is wealthy and the girl only just thirteen, so it won't be a proper training assignment just yet. I'm charged with monitoring her and if possible winning her trust, opening her to the possibilities of the supernatural. It will give me plenty of time to continue with my own research as well, so it's quite ideal.” He took a swig from the bottle. “Christ, this is vile. Don't you have any decent beer in America?” 

“You mean that warm, chewy stuff you kept foisting on me at those pubs?” Jed asked with a laugh, taking a pull from his own beer. “I'm afraid that's a British specialty, you'll have to find a place catering to expats to get any of that. We prefer our beer cold, clear, and cheap.” 

Quentin visibly shuddered. “At least there's always whiskey, he muttered. Even so, he took another drink. “So how are things with your girl? She's going for a doctor, isn't she?” 

“That's right,” Jed told him proudly. “Top marks in her pre-med program so far, and already telling her male counterparts at Harvard where to stick their stethoscopes. Bunch of tight-ass sons of bitches. She'll put them in their place. She should be over here in another few hours, you should stick around and I'll introduce you.” 

“Maybe I will,” Quentin agreed with a nod. “I'd like to meet the girl who turned a fourth-generation Watcher into an economist in just one year. I admit I'd expected you'd have made an honest woman of her by now.” 

“It's not for lack of wanting!” Jed assured him with great feeling. “As a matter of fact, I have plans for two weeks from now, to mark the end of term.” He set down his beer and went back to the dresser, reaching into the same drawer and pulling out a tiny velvet-clad box. “She's going back to New Hampshire for the summer, but I'll be damned if she goes as a free agent.” 

Quentin opened the box and looked critically at the ring inside. Jed couldn't afford much; without his father's favor he had an important name without money to back it up, but the diamond was nicely cut, the metal gleaming bright. “And a protective rune inscribed inside,” he noted with interest. “Very nice.” 

“You can't be too careful,” Jed told him staunchly. “But this is wonderful; if you're located in Connecticut for the duration, you'll be there for the wedding! Just wait till you get a chance to see an American bachelor party. It will be a bacchanal unlike any your sheltered eyes have ever beheld! Wine, women and song, feasting and telling lies till the break of dawn.” 

“I see,” Quentin replied drolly. “And the wedding itself?” 

“Oh, I'll leave that to Abbey and her mother to plan,” Jed claimed with a careless wave of his hand. “Women love that sort of thing.” 

“With an attitude like that, I'd wait to start planning the bachelor party till you're sure she'll say yes,” Quentin advised, smiling even as he spoke. “She might just wise up and drop you in favor of an Oxford man.” 

“You're one of my best friends, Quint,” Jed told him sincerely, “but I swear I would kill you with my own two hands first. Come on, let's go down to the street and order up some food before Abbey gets here. Really welcome you to the neighborhood. Have you ever had Boston baked beans?” 

“No, and I'm terrified to try them.” Quentin's look was extremely dubious. 

Jed grinned at him as he rose and grabbed his coat. Quentin had to duck out of the way as the young man seemed to fling it over his head before putting it on. “That's the spirit. You'll love it.”


	9. Amantes Sunt Amentes

“There's no way in hell we're doing this.” 

“But we have to! It's a vital part of the ritual! Centuries of accumulated wisdom says so, the very fate of-” 

“Jed, it's too dangerous. You could hurt yourself.” 

“Oh ye of little faith! It is your doubt that wounds me, sharper than a knife...” 

“The spirit is willing, but the flesh is a doctoral student in economics who eats like he thinks hot dogs are their own food group and vegetables are-” 

“Okay, that's about enough out of you.” Jed scooped Abbey up over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and hauled her over the threshold, his arm barely enough to hold her voluminous white skirt at bay. It wasn't exactly the romantic bridal carry of a black and white movie, but it served the purpose. “And look at that, you're not a vampire. It's my lucky day!” Just for fun he neglected to put her down as he continued on into their tiny new apartment, moving very carefully to avoid running her into anything. Fun was fun, but neither of them needed a concussion on their wedding night. 

Abbey kicked him in the gut for his trouble, but luckily she had very little leverage. “There has got to be a better way to discourage perverted little demons from wedding dresses,” she complained. “It's 1967, for god's sake!” 

Jed gave her a raised-eyebrow look over his shoulder. “Demons?” he asked innocently. “Does that tradition have to do with demons?” 

She put her elbow in his kidney, possibly on accident. “That's what you said! You told me it was Neth'hrk'ptl demons or something like that, that they tried to get into the dresses of brides on their wedding day, and that's where the tradition came from.” 

“Oh, I was lying,” he told her breezily. “It sounds so much better than the truth, that it's a holdover from the days when a man would find a bride by stealing her from her family and dragging her home with him. Protecting you from demons gives it an aura of courtly romance.” 

Abbey managed to slither out of his grip and onto her own two feet, stepping on his own foot quite hard in the process. Jed was certain that was intentional. “Jackass,” she spat affectionately before pulling him in for a kiss. It had been a long ride down from Hanover and Jed suspected he was already wearing most of her lipstick. All in the very best of causes. 

“Though I will say it's flattering to know that you actually listened to and remembered some of my lectures,” he added when they broke for air. “I feel like my teaching career is off to a good start already.” 

“Well, just because I'm not a Slayer doesn't mean there are no demons in the world,” she pointed out with a pragmatic shrug. “If I plan to work in a hospital around sick people, I'm sure I'll encounter at least a few from time to time. It pays to be well-informed. And,” she purred, “it didn't hurt any that the lecturer was extremely handsome.” 

“That's it, I'm auditing your classes, young lady.” Jed felt that the smack he got for that one was well-earned. He gave her his very best disingenuous smile and was rewarded for it when she grabbed him by the bowtie and hauled him into the bedroom. This whole marriage business really did seem to be getting off to an auspicious start.


	10. Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori

Jed got out of the car and stretched, popping tired joints and enjoying the early morning sunlight after a long nighttime drive. Next to him Abbey was doing the same thing, shaking out the miles and the tension that came from driving for hours with potentially world-saving books in the car. Once he had the worst of the kinks out, he went around to the trunk and pulled the books themselves out, all carefully wrapped in several protective layers. Abbey played lookout, just on the off-chance that something might be hanging around to intercept them, but mostly she was looking at the house, a massive Colonial quite at home in the affluent neighborhood. “So this is Quentin's new place? He's doing well for himself,” she observed drolly. 

“A step or two up from the bachelor quarters I was given as a Watcher,” Jed agreed cheerfully, “though I did find the company I kept made up for any discomforts. This house happens to be next door to his Pot-, er, his Slayer, which makes it ideal for its purpose. I'm sure the massive size and undoubted luxury is just an incidental bonus.” 

“Of course.” Abbey rolled her eyes as they approached the doors, still trying to smooth down some of the wrinkles from eleven hours of driving. “I'm just hoping some of those extra bedrooms are furnished. I can't spend another minute in that damned car without a nap and a shower.” 

“That makes two of us then,” Jed agreed wholeheartedly before ringing the bell. 

The door opened almost immediately, but it was not Quentin waiting for them. Jed found himself confronted by a young woman of perhaps fifteen, curly brown hair surrounding a cherubic face that had yet to shed all the baby fat. Her brown eyes were sharp and interested as she regarded the visitors, and within her small body Jed could sense the kind of contained energy he'd thought peculiar to Potentials, only magnified exponentially. “Are you the people with the books?” she asked. 

“Indeed we are,” Jed assured her with affable politeness, hoisting the box a little higher. “I'm Jed Bartlet, and this is my wife Abigail. I assume you must be Joan?” 

The girl nodded, withdrawing from the doorway to allow them to enter if they could. Jed took the unspoken invitation and walked in, Abbey on his heels. “That's right,” she told him, “but everybody calls me Joanie. Mr. Travers is upstairs in the study. He told me he'll be down in just a few minutes and to give you tea or “dreadful coffee” if you got here.” She grinned, showing off dimples in both cheeks. “You want some?” 

“I'd love some dreadful coffee,” Abbey piped up. “And I'm sure Jed would too. Getting to Montreal for the books was no problem, but they nearly didn't let Jed back in because he wouldn't stop lecturing the border guard on tariff theories. It was horrifying,” she confided to Joanie. 

“He was clearly in the wrong when he claimed that the import of-”

Jed's attempt to explain himself was cut off short by Abbey's shout of “No!” and her firmly upraised hand. “No more tariffs, no more economics lectures, no more discussing your thesis or anyone else's thesis, or why more politicians should be economists! If you want to talk about creepy demon lords then by all means let's do so, but I am going to stab you if I hear you say GDP one more time today.” 

“You never let me have any fun,” Jed sulked. “But some coffee would be nice.” Joanie, who was giggling by now, led them into a nicely furnished living room and bade them sit down before scampering off to the kitchen for mugs.

She was a bit overly-liberal with the cream and sugar in both cups, but after everything he'd consumed while driving through the night, Jed figured he'd probably have been better off with hot milk anyway. While they drank, Joanie headed back to the main entryway and hung off the banister with both arms while she yelled up the stairs. “Mr. Traaaavers! Your guests are here! You better come down, cause I don't think the dreadful coffee's going to hold them very long!” 

A few moments later the man himself appeared on the stairs, looking almost as rumpled as the two travelers. His sweater vest had coffee and ink stains on it, and his hair looked as though he'd been combing his fingers through it all night. “You are a terrible, rude child,” he told Joanie with obvious affection. “I suppose you drowned it in sugar again?” 

“It makes it better!” she assured her mentor, grinning. “And gives you more energy. Do you have any cookies? They look like they're about to fall asleep.” 

“No, I don't have any biscuits,” he told her, carefully enunciating the British term, “but you may go and get me some at the bakery.” He pulled a few dollars from his pocket. “Get the snickerdoodles, mind you, and none of those horrible peanut butter things. And keep a close eye out!” He watched as she bolted out of the door just a little faster than any girl should have, then sighed and joined them in the living room. “You have the books?” he asked with no preamble. 

Jed nodded towards the parcel on the coffee table. “With the compliments of the Watcher chapter of Montreal. They didn't even quibble over using me as the deliveryman, which probably just goes to show how urgent the matter really is.” 

“Time is of the essence,” Quentin agreed, already moving to unpack and examine the books. “Demonic activity in the area has been shockingly high this summer, and it's obviously heading towards some kind of crescendo. I estimate no more than six weeks before there's some kind of major summoning, and possibly an apocalypse before the end of the year at this rate. We need to know what we're dealing with if we're to have any hope of stopping it.” 

“How is your Slayer handling it?” Abbey asked. “She seems to be in good spirits.” 

“Oh, she's game, very game,” Quentin told her, “and a dab hand with a stake and a sword. I feel she has a natural talent for it, even among Slayers. Perhaps it's her musical talent; she moves like a dancer when she fights. But she was only called in July,” he admitted with a sigh, “and she's barely fifteen. I had hoped to have more time to train her before she had to face anything like this. I'm afraid some of her bravado comes from simply not understanding what we're facing.” 

“I'm sure you're doing enough worrying for both of you,” Jed quipped, trying to lighten the suddenly heavy atmosphere. He knew Abbey was thinking of herself at fifteen and wondering what would have happened if her number had come up. Joanie was an engaging girl even on short acquaintance, and the idea of her facing the life of a Slayer was rather painful. He could only imagine what it must feel like for Quentin. “Have you got any leads?” 

Quentin opened the thickest of the books. “I've turned up a bit of information on a demon lord called Loctenjo, but not enough to be particularly useful. I'm hoping these books will shed a bit more light, but they need translated first. It will take some time.” 

“Well then, you're lucky it's still summer, then!” Jed announced with heartiness that was just a bit forced under the circumstances. “Just give us four or five hours horizontal in a bed, and we'll delve in right beside you. It turns out one does not have to be a Watcher to pick up the rudiments of demon languages, if one isn't too picky about the bars he hangs out in.” 

Quentin shook his head, smiling slightly. “You really are an amazing idiot sometimes, Jed.” 

“And how!” Abbey agreed with a yawn. She grinned angelically at the glare Jed shot her. “But yes, anything we can do to help. I like the world quite a bit, I'd hate to see it be destroyed from Connecticut on out.” 

“All right then, I'll welcome anything you can do,” Quentin decided. “And if anyone asks you, Jed, you're my cousin from Boston and his wife, and I'm tutoring Joanie in classical languages and teaching her the harpsichord in the evenings and on weekends. Joanie's family is in and out of this house a few times a week, especially the little boy. Just keep them away from the weapons and the books and all will be well.” 

Jed nodded, filing away the information. “The harpsichord, eh? Will you give us a concert?” he teased.

“I'm sure Joanie would be happy to show you everything she's been learning,” Quentin replied with an evil glint in his eye. “If you thought sparring with a Potential was taxing...” 

“Perhaps we'll just skip ahead to the nap and research portion of the program, then,” Jed reconsidered hastily. 

“Excellent idea.”


	11. Quem di Diligunt, Adulescens Moritur

“And all I'm saying, Jed, is that Boston is cold as hell in November. I don't think that's a controversial position.” Abbey scrunched down further under the heavy quilt and glared out at him from the increasingly small opening for her face. 

“Not controversial so much as ridiculous under the circumstances,” Jed corrected, deliberately stretching out to show how unaffected he was in his t-shirt and athletic shorts. He hoped the goosebumps would not be visible from Abbey's perspective. “Perhaps certain lesser mortals might consider this cold, those less accustomed to severe climes, but surely a New Hampshire woman born and bred could stare down the barrel of an oncoming Bostonian winter with a smile and a very fetching sundress-” 

“That I can use to ram down your throat?” she suggested. “I mean it Jed, we need to get into a new place, one with better heat. This climate control is killing me, and once we start having kids... You want to try telling a newborn baby that sixty-four degrees inside the house is not so cold?” 

“Are you saying we're going to have wimpy babies, Abigail?” he teased. “Because if so, I think we'd better do something about that. Perhaps we should feed you a more fortifying diet. Did you know that physicians used to believe that experiences a woman had during pregnancy would be responsible for the appearance and personality of the child? If there's anything to that, we could always bundle you into a walk-in refrigerator for a few hours a day... unless that would give them an aversion to cold, and instead we should be putting you in a sauna? This is complex business!” 

She stuck an arm out of the quilt long enough to hit him with a pillow. “Seeing as how I'm not even pregnant yet, I think we've got some time to plan. Especially if this is an example of you trying to convince me to procreate,” she added darkly. 

“Oh no, I have much better ways of doing that,” he assured her with a positively devilish grin. She raised both her eyebrows and started to lower the quilt a bit, but was interrupted by a pounding on the front door. 

“You did pay the rent this month, right?” Jed asked, keeping his face obnoxiously guileless. He received another pillow for his troubles, then got up to answer the door. “Quentin?” 

The question was not entirely one of politeness. The Quentin at his door was very different from anything Jed had seen before. He looked as though he hadn't slept or changed his clothes in days, and there was a strong and acrid smell of smoke about him. Not cigarette smoke either, but woodsmoke, as though he'd slept next to a campfire. He didn't even wait for Jed to move before stumbling his way into the apartment, which at least obviated Jed's first concern. “Quentin, what happened?” He helped the staggering Watcher to the sofa, looking over his head at Abbey, who disappeared into the kitchen. “Where's Joanie?” 

The noise Quentin made was barely human, part moan, part howl of pain. It was startlingly out of place from the normally buttoned-down man. Jed sat down on the sofa next to him, instinctively wrapping one arm around him. From this close, he could just hear Quentin murmur “She's gone, she's gone. I couldn't reach her in time.” 

“Was it the demon lord?” Jed asked. He'd known that Quentin and the Council were still working on that problem, but he'd thought- well, never mind what he'd thought. Obviously the disaster had not been under control at all. 

Quentin nodded fractionally, burying his face in his hands for a minute. Jed waited quietly as he pulled himself together. He could hear rain beginning to fall outside, smell coffee perking in the kitchen. Finally Quentin spoke again. “We'd finally gotten his location, but the ritual we'd used to do it let him find us in return. He knew where she was, and he was coming for her. I had a banishing ritual prepared, much safer than trying to kill the thing outright, but Joanie never met me at the circle.” He let out a choked sob. “She was babysitting, can you believe it? Her parents wouldn't let her leave the house because they wanted a nice restaurant dinner, and she couldn't go and leave her little brother alone! Babysitting!” The strangled sound he made might have been a laugh, were it not so horrible. “So of course when Loctenjo came, he came right to her house, right where she was vulnerable. Right where I was not with her.” 

Jed felt his heart twist with the pain of it, even at a remove. He couldn't imagine, couldn't allow himself to imagine himself in the same situation. Still, some vestige of training made him ask “Is he still at large? Do we need to warn the Council?” 

That got another terrible laugh. “No, oh no, it's dead. She was so beautiful, Jed. She moved like a dancer, even bleeding, even burned as she was. I tried to get to her, but there were wards up, like running through a hurricane. Her little brother was out in the yard, she'd put every holy symbol she could find on him and sent him to me, as though I could protect anyone! By the time I made it to the house it was already starting to burn, but I went in anyway, saw her run him through with a blessed blade.” 

He took a deep, ragged breath. “I saw the fire engulf both of them, burn them both to blackened husks in seconds. It was just seconds! I cut off the thing's head and scattered the ashes, but the house was burning. I took the sword and left, did a memory spell on little Joshua. They all think a popcorn popper caught fire and she was just a silly girl, too frightened to run from a burning house. A poor legacy, a goddamned poor legacy for a brave and wonderful girl.” 

Jed pressed his hands against his own face, wiping away a few stray tears, and crossed himself for the memory of the lost young woman. “They won't know, but we won't forget,” he assured Quentin, his voice hoarse. Abbey chose that moment to come over with three cups of coffee, passing one to each of the men. 

Quentin grimaced, but drank. Jed did too, finding it laced liberally with whiskey. Abbey always had excellent ideas. “I spoke to the Council already. They're sorry to hear about her, glad the demon is dead, etcetera, etcetera,” he spat. “I'm to report back to London at my earliest convenience to file my diary and await reassignment. Reassignment, as though I can move on to another twelve year old girl and repeat everything again!”

He clenched his hands into fists, pounded them against his legs. “If only her family hadn't been in the mix, everything would've been different. I could've trained her so much faster, given her skills that might have kept her alive! She certainly wouldn't have been trapped in her house with a six year old weighing her down like an anchor so that she put her own holy symbol on him and went to her death with no protection!” 

“You can't change what happened, Quint,” Abbey reminded him gently. “You did everything you could, and you helped her save the world. Sometimes that's all you can say. Why don't you stay with us for a few days? I'll make up the cot in the spare room.” 

Quentin looked up at her, almost dazed, like he didn't quite remember all of what he'd been yelling about. “Yes,” he finally said, a shadow of his normal self peeking through. “Yes, if it's no trouble, I'd like to have a bit of a rest. I'm sorry to barge in on you like this.” 

“Not at all,” Jed said firmly, with Abbey nodding agreement. “There's no better place for you to have come. Finish your drink and we'll put you to bed.” The Watcher did as instructed, letting himself be put to bed in the tiny guest room like a tired child. He needed a shower, and to change the clothes that Jed could now see were singed around the edges, but not as much as he needed to sleep. 

With that done, Jed and Abbey retired to their own bedroom, climbing back under the heavy quilts with none of the cheerful teasing from earlier. Neither of them knew what to say, but their bodies instinctively found one another, clinging together in the deep darkness of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joanie's story here is derived from my other Buffy crossover story, Tikkun Olam. I don't know that all the details from the last, post-1968 part will remain the same, so perhaps treat that as a closely-related parallel universe.


	12. Quid Enim Proderet Homini

“You could take a sabbatical,” Jed suggested, passing the bottle across the sofa to Quentin. “Just a few months even, to clear your head and recover. Everyone would understand.” 

Quentin accepted the bottle with tipsy dignity before taking a swig. He'd woken up shouting incoherent warnings an hour earlier, and Jed had thought it more therapeutic to offer whiskey than to try and get him to sleep longer. Now, well over half a bottle into their impromptu wake, glasses hardly seemed necessary. “I don't know,” he admitted. “I don't know what to do with myself anymore. Were you at the Council long enough to meet the old soldiers?” 

Jed cocked his head. “No, I don't think so. Are there Watchers in the military?” 

“Yes, but that's not what I'm talking about.” Quentin waved a hand irritably and did not pass the bottle back. “The Watchers who lost their Slayers and have never come back from it all the way. It's as though they're only half-present, like there's nothing to interest them about life anymore.”

He took another drink, gestured with the bottle. “It doesn't always happen, you know. Some of them are just fine. All those old bastards at the head of the Council, most of them had Slayers of their own back in the day. Some of them can just set it aside, the way you'd forget a hammer you broke and threw away. But some of them, especially the ones who've raised their girls, and the really skilled Watchers whose girls live for years, they never get over the loss. They're like old soldiers, they don't die.” 

“They just fade away,” Jed finished meditatively. 

“Just so,” Quentin nodded. All that training and knowledge, but they can never get back into the game.” He stared into the bottle as though the amber liquid held a message for him. 

Jed sat back, not particularly interested in more to drink. “They did the job they were asked to do,” he offered. “They guided their Slayers, they held back the darkness. Perhaps they even saved the world.” 

Quentin was silent for a long moment, his eyes still focused a thousand miles away. “For what shall it profit a man,” he finally said, “if he shall gain the whole world but lose his soul?” 

“I don't know,” Jed had to admit, “but I don't think you've lost yours. She wouldn't-”

“Don't, Jed. What she wanted doesn't matter anymore.” Quentin took another deep draught. “She wanted to be a musician, and god knows the universe didn't give a damn about that. I wanted to be there with her, to die with her if necessary, and here I am with you instead, getting blotto on bad whiskey.”

He toasted the unfeeling sky through the blankness of the ceiling. “Maybe I will take a sabbatical,” he decided. “There's research I never got around to doing, a bit of travel...” He perked up for just a moment, then visibly wilted again. “But it hardly seems fitting. Perhaps I'll just go back to work in a different department. I've had my field assignment, I'm eligible for administration now. A step back from the front lines, that might be what I need.” 

“That's a good idea,” Jed encouraged. “Your organizational skills are a fearsome thing.” 

“The funeral's tomorrow,” Quentin said abruptly, switching topics once again. “It should've been today, the family is Jewish, but we had to cook the books on the coroner's inquest and needed the extra time. I imagine it will be quite well-attended.” 

“Would you like us to come with you?” Jed asked immediately. “Abbey and I may not have known Joanie well, but we know how fully her life deserves to be celebrated.” 

Quentin hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, if you would. That would be good.” They said no more about it then, Jed just sitting by quietly while Quentin finished the bottle. 

 

Jed had never been to a Jewish synagogue of any kind, so attending a funeral at one was a bit unnerving. The building was very crowded though, so he and Abbey hardly stood out as they bookended Quentin, hungover and haunted behind a polite sorrowful mask. Jed had only met Joanie's family, the Lymans, one time during their previous stay, but he recognized them at the front of the church. The father looked twenty years older than he had three months ago, the mother as though a wind could sweep her away. It was the little boy, though, who caught and held his attention. He was so young it seemed impossible he should understand all of what was happening, yet somehow Jed was certain he did. A tiny thing with curly hair and dimples like his sister, he held his mother's hand not for his own sake, but as though trying to remind her that he was still with her. Another couple was standing with them, a striking man about Jed's height and a redheaded woman with a tiny swaddled infant. Jed wasn't sure of the relationship there, but they seemed to be acting as guardians against the well-meaning attentions of so many people. He approved. 

The music was strange and the words often unintelligible, but grief had its own language and made the service easy enough to follow. Jed was just starting to become easier with his surroundings when he noticed that Quentin's eyes were focused not on the rabbi or the cantor, but on Joanie's family. “They shouldn't have been allowed to interfere,” Quentin whispered under his breath. “She'd be alive if not for them!” 

Jed quickly looked around them to make sure no one had heard the quiet vitriol. “Come on, Quint,” he chided softly. “This isn't the time or place.” He kept a sharp eye on the Watcher for the rest of the service, but aside from a faint tremor in his hands, the man seemed almost unmoved. Between Jed and Abbey, they were able to shepherd Quentin into the post-funeral wake, which surely had a special name that Jed did not know. On an ordinary day he'd have lost no time in learning more, but these were special circumstances. He sat Quint down in a corner with a sandwich and resolved to spend the minimum possible time here before emotions could start running any higher. He didn't see the family at all, which made things easier. 

Just as he thought that, a speeding missile with curly brown hair caught him in the legs, nearly knocking him over. He put out his hands automatically, catching both himself and the little boy who'd plowed into him. It looked as though whatever grace had carried Joshua through the service had run its course, and now angry, confused tears streaked his small face. He struggled futilely against Jed's restraining hands for a moment but said nothing, just glared up with all the frustration in his heart. 

Jed mustered a small, faint smile for the boy. “Hello, Joshua. I don't know if you remember me, I'm Jed Bartlet.” 

Joshua seemed to take this as an insult impugning his memory skills. “I know who you are,” he sneered. “You stayed with Mr. Travers. You're his brother or something.” 

“Yes, that's right,” Jed allowed. “I'm very, very sorry about what happened to your sister.” 

That drew no more than a vague shrug from the child. Jed was sure it was the hundredth time he'd heard the same empty words that day. He was trying to come up with something more helpful, or at least something comforting, when the man he'd seen earlier with Joshua's father came up to them. 

“Hey kid,” he said to Joshua, his voice an interesting blend of Boston and Chicago. “You ran off pretty quick back there. Your mother is worried about you.” 

“Nuh-uh,” the boy contradicted brazenly, his lower lip showing in a pout. “She's too sad. She didn't even see.” 

“She did see,” the man insisted patiently. “She asked me specifically to come and find you. Why don't you go stand with her a little longer? She needs you right now.” 

Jed felt the small shoulders wilt under his hands, then square again. “Yessir,” he finally said, slipping from Jed's grasp with no problem this time. Jed and the man both watched as he made his way back to his parents, moving with grave dignity in his little black suit. 

Both of them let out a breath at the same time. “Thanks for the catch,” the man finally said, offering a hand. “I'm Leo McGarry.” 

“Jed Bartlet,” Jed replied, extending his in return. Leo had a firm handshake but not too firm, professionally friendly like a businessman or banker. His eyes, though... Jed only counted himself a middling judge of character, but something in Leo's eyes said he'd seen more of the bad in the world than any banker. “Friend of the family?” 

McGarry nodded. “I'm doing an internship for Mr. Lyman at Debevoise and Plimpton. He's been very good to me and to my family, I'd like to return the favor in some small measure. You?” 

“Of a sort,” Jed allowed. “My brother lives next door to the family, he tutored Joanie for several years. I only knew her a little, but he needs some moral support. 

That got a solemn nod from McGarry. “Was he the neighbor who was there that night?” 

“Yes, that was him. There was nothing more that he could've done, but he's taking it very hard.” Jed sighed a little for the truth that was buried among the falsehoods. 

“It's a hard thing.” Something about the man's voice made Jed suspect he was speaking from experience. “I don't think Noah and Hannah will be here too much longer. They're going to be sitting shiva at home for the next little while. Please make sure to pass along our thanks to your brother. I know he found Josh, even if there was nothing he could do for Joanie. It matters that he tried.” 

Jed nodded. “I'll make sure to do that. Thank you for looking after them. They're a nice family, much too nice to have had something like this happen.” 

“Yeah,” McGarry agreed heavily. “Nothing about life is fair, it it?” He turned and walked back towards the knot of people at the front doors, leaving Jed to go round up Abbey and Quentin. They'd all had enough of sorrow for one day. 

 

Quid enim proderet homni: For what does it profit a man


	13. Uxor Formosa et Vinum

Abbey was doing her best to hold still and smile for the family pictures, but Jed was making it very difficult. When he wasn't moving himself or blinking into the camera, he was whispering into her ear in a very ticklish fashion. “Salutatorian isn't bad, I'll grant you that, but I still say that you were robbed. And you'd have given a much better speech.” 

“Hush, you,” she muttered out of the corner of her smile. “And of course I would've, but I would've talked about Nixon and god knows we can't have any of that nasty political discourse on campus anymore.” 

“You can discourse to me anytime,” he reminded her, sneaking a quick kiss behind her ear. She swatted at him without looking as she turned to accept congratulations from another set of aunts and uncles. Abbey's graduation from Radcliffe had of course occasioned a large party at the Barrington home, with Barringtons and assorted other relatives coming from far and near to celebrate. The food was excellent, the weather beautiful, and the music extremely staid and boring. Jed had to find his amusement where he could get it. 

Breaking away from his wife for a moment, he took a spin through the crowd and waylaid a waiter for a couple glasses of champagne punch. That was also excellent, and made the music much more bearable. Being a dutiful husband, he carried one glass over to Abbey, who accepted it with a kiss for his cheek and proceeded to ignore it entirely. When she dropped it on a table and walked away, Jed picked it up himself, the better to not let it go to waste.

As the guest of honor, Abbey really didn't have much time for anything except socializing anyway. Jed could do that when he needed to, but he much preferred to buttonhole a few likely-looking fellows near the bar and explain to them exactly why West Germany leaving the Bretton Woods monetary agreement was a stunning development in international finance that the President was going to have to address sooner rather than later. It was Jed's current favorite subject, not to mention the topic of the article he was currently writing. Most of his audience found excuses to drift away rather quickly, but he did get a few spirited debates out of the matter. 

He was right in the middle of explaining the current alarming trend of unemployment to one of Abbey's distant cousins when the woman of the hour waylaid him, pulling him into a corner. “I was being sociable!” he defended himself automatically. “He was interested!” 

“His eyes were glazing over, but I don't care.” Abbey shoved a glass of wine into his hand. “Here, drink half of this right now.” 

“Why Mrs. Bartlet, are you trying to-” Jed began, but was cut off by her glare. He obediently took a healthy slug of wine from the glass. It was a terrible way to treat good wine, but at least it seemed to satisfy Abbey. She snatched the glass back without so much as a thank you and disappeared back into the crowd, holding it in one hand as though she'd been enjoying it herself. 

It was partially his own fault, Jed decided, that he had so little to do at this party. He could've invited some friends of his own to the shindig, but he really hadn't made too many outside of the economics   
department and even those were more along the lines of congenial rivalries. He'd had so little time for anything besides school and Abbey these past few years, and since Quentin had gone back to England last fall, he'd not taken much time to socialize. Most of his college friends were Watchers now, and though he still had a few contacts with that bunch, many of them had turned their back on him after his “egregious lack of propriety with a Potential” had gotten him kicked out of the club. Jed had no real regrets about that lack of propriety, but he did miss the friends. 

He rejoined Abbey for the dinner hour, sitting with her as her father toasted her success and her bright future at Harvard Medical School next year. It was a lovely toast, very emotional, and Jed was happy to raise his glass and drink to his beautiful and brilliant wife. Abbey herself, though, seemed more reticent, to the point where he wasn't sure she drank at all. This was reinforced when she pushed her glass in his direction, surreptitiously swapping it with his half-empty one. 

Jed obligingly took a sip from that glass as well, but raised an eyebrow at his wife. “Not that I wouldn't do anything for you, my dear,” he murmured, leaning in close to her, “but might I ask why you've been plying me with drink this afternoon? Are you planning on liquoring me up and having your wicked way with me? Because I'm perfectly all right with that...” 

Abbey gave him the sort of feminine, feline smile that said she knew far, far more than he could ever hope to comprehend. It was a very sexy look. “I just want to be fair,” she told him, sotto voce. 

“Fair?” he asked, knowing his role in this conversation perfectly well. 

“Absolutely.” She picked up her fork and snagged one of the profiteroles off his dessert plate. “I figure since I'm eating for two from now until December or so, you'll just have to suck it up and drink for the both of us.” 

“What?” Jed's wide-eyed double-take was enough to keep her laughing for the rest of the night.

 

Uxor Formosa et Vinum: Beautiful women and wine


	14. Innumeras Curas Secum Adferunt Liberi

Fitting a nursery into the tiny apartment hadn't been a picnic, but all the expensive heirloom baby furniture shoved into the tiny guest bedroom at least appealed to Abbey's sense of the absurd. Buying a house wasn't in the cards for the moment, not with Jed finishing his last year of school and her own education momentarily deferred. Who even knew where they'd be in another year or two? In any case, their poverty was more romantic and youthful than truly uncomfortable, and she was pragmatist enough to appreciate the distinction. A Barrington-Bartlet of New Hampshire would never go scrounging for diapers or grocery money. 

That was just as well, because Abbey had other problems on her mind as the trees began to turn gold and the weather cooled that autumn. She was healthy as a horse and becoming rounder every day, with an active interior occupant whose enthusiastic swimming made her feel a little bit like a fishbowl on legs. This new person inside her was an enigma in every detail, but Abbey was head over heels in love already. Her attempt to learn to knit had failed (it turned out that proficiency with a stake did not actually translate to skill with wooden needles) but she'd still acquired an entire layette with plenty of extra pieces for the baby-to-be. She'd read the brand new edition of Dr. Spock's book on baby and child care from cover to cover, and gone to every scheduled appointment with her doctor. None of that, however, could help her with her big question. 

For that, she went to the source. She waited until they were both in bed, spooned up together in the dark with one of Jed's hands resting comfortably on her swollen stomach. “Jed,” she murmured, “I've been wondering if... is Potential something that can be passed along in families? I don't know anyone else in my family who was, but they might not have said anything about it. And I know there are hereditary Watcher families... do we have to worry?” 

She could feel his warm breath on her ear, feel the gentle strokes of his hand that said he was still awake, but for a long time he was silent. “I'm not sure,” he finally admitted. “I know there are ways for the Council to find Potentials besides the ritual I showed you. Some Potentials are identified in early childhood and tracked their whole lives, but I don't know if that's because the Council knows where to look. They are very close-mouthed about their methods when it comes to educating new Watchers, so I never learned very much.” 

“But it's a possibility,” she stated flatly. 

“I can't say one way or another,” he agreed reluctantly. “But I can ask Quentin.” Jed sighed. “I should get in touch with him anyway. I haven't really spoken to him since he went back to England. I thought about calling him when we started telling our friends, but it seemed...” He hesitated. “I'm not sure. He took Joanie's death so hard, and he wasn't getting any better. I suppose it seemed cruel while he's still grieving, that we should be celebrating new life. But this is important.” 

Abbey nodded and was silent a moment, staring into the darkness. “If it had been me,” she asked, her voice hardly a whisper, “would you have-” 

His arms tightened around her, just short of painful. “God, sweetheart, please, I can't-” His voice caught. “I can't bear to think that way. Living through the possibility once was bad enough. I'd have been a shell of a man, not even half alive.” His hand began moving again, long strokes over her side, her breasts, her stomach, not really sensual or even soothing, almost like he was reassuring himself she was really there. 

“I know,” she murmured, catching his hand and cocooning it with her own, then bringing it to her lips. “We were both so lucky. I can't bear the idea of having to wonder if our little girl will go through the same thing. I need to at least know what our odds are.” 

“I'll call him tomorrow,” Jed promised. “And no matter what he says, we won't let anything bad happen, I promise. We'll move heaven and earth if we have to.” 

Abbey rolled in his arms to face him, stroking one hand lightly along his night-stubbled cheek. “And I suppose there's the possibility that we'll only have boys,” she offered with a half smile. “I hear they're a lot less trouble anyway.”

 

Innumeras Curas Secum Adferunt Liberi: Children bring with them countless cares


	15. Sicut Mater, Ita et Filia Eius

“I want you to know how much I hate you right now.” 

“Yes, I know. It's entirely justified.” 

Abbey's glare suggested she wasn't mollified. “I mean it, buster. I have never hated anyone more than I hate you in this- shit!” 

Jed rubbed his wife's back, crooning anxiously in her ear as her body convulsed. “You're absolutely right to hate me, sweetheart, go ahead and lay it on me.” 

“This is entirely your fault,” she insisted when she could draw breath again. “How the hell did you get me pregnant when we were barely even living in the same house? I was sleeping in the hospital and pulling twenty-hour shifts! And with a five-year old at home! One weekend, one lousy- stop touching me, I hate that now.” 

“My virility is a curse,” he told her soberly, pulling his hands away and fumbling for the bowl with the cold washcloth in it. “Is this supposed to be going so fast? I seem to recall you being in labor for something like four days with Elizabeth.” 

“Second babies go faster,” Abbey growled, making an angry pawing motion at the washcloth. Jed obligingly wrung out the cloth and put it on the back of her neck, which seemed to bring momentary relief. “And if we'd come to the hospital when I wanted to, there'd have been time enough for an epidural.” 

Despite his resolution to be an exquisitely supportive modern husband, Jed's mouth dropped open at this bit of outlandish revisionist history. “I'd have brought you any time! You were the one who wanted to put Lizzie to bed and wait for your parents!”

She glared at him, but couldn't immediately rebut the argument. “You're probably going to be sorry you argued your way in here in the first place. Even if I don't kill you myself.” 

“No I won't,” he insisted staunchly. “Sitting out in that waiting room and not knowing what was going on was hell. I don't know how any man can deal calmly with that. I'd much rather put my life in your lovely hands. I'm sure the doctor will be back any minute and we'll have done with this whole thing. And then you won't want to kill me anymore because you'll need someone to mind the children while you have a nap.” 

“I could hire a nanny,” she maintained, but relaxed enough to lean back against him for a moment. “You're going to be busy in the State House anyway, and working on that economics book of yours. I'll be lucky to get you to change a diaper before she's potty-trained.” 

“Ah, the State House is boring,” he assured her. “They don't really need all four hundred of us to govern eight hundred fifty thousand people, most of whom wish we'd all just go away. I'll have plenty of time.”

That actually got a faint smile out of her. “And if it's a girl, do you have the stuff?” 

He nodded. “The first moment we have her alone I can do the test. We won't send her off to the nursery without it.” The rumors Jed had been hearing come out of the Council lately were just that, rumors and speculation, but there seemed to be a growing coalition of Watchers who wanted all identified Potentials under the close control of the Council. He wasn't sure what exactly that would look like, or whether any policies had actually changed, but he wasn't going to take any chances with his family. 

“Good.” Abbey's body arched again as another contraction started, long and strong and obviously painful. Something about the quality of her cry seemed to alert the nurses on the floor, and soon Jed found himself pushed to one side to observe the miracle of life in all its disgusting, bloody, miraculous glory. He was equal parts appalled and fascinated, and entirely unsure that he would ever have sex again. Knowing that this was a possible consequence, it was frankly amazing that Abbey had ever agreed to it in the first place. 

“It's a girl,” announced the doctor, filling Jed with a mixture of elation and fear, the same feeling he'd gone through when Elizabeth had been born five years ago. Quentin hadn't been able to ease his mind any on that score, telling him that while Potentials could come from anywhere, there was a tendency to see them multiple times in family lines, sometimes skipping generations and cropping up in grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Many Watcher families had Potentials in the woodshed as well, despite Jed so recently getting fired over it, which only increased the chances. As he held his daughter for the first time, already falling in love with this delicate creature and her mewling, almost apologetic cry, he wished for just a moment that she was a boy. 

Abbey was exhausted by the delivery, but the happy hormones flooding her body kept her alert long enough to fawn over her new daughter for a few minutes, then hold her while Jed barred the door with a chair and set up the ritual implements around the plastic hospital bassinet. Baby Eleanor squirmed and squalled at being unwrapped from her blanket and anointed, but at least she didn't scream bloody murder like her older sister had. 

The ritual was quick and painless as always, and Jed's knees turned to water with relief when the child was bathed in the white light that meant nothing. No capital-P Potential in this little one, which meant she had potential for anything else she wanted to be. They were two times lucky now, he thought as he picked up the baby and snuggled her close, easing her cries. He didn't really think he could give up on sex entirely, once he'd managed to scrub the last few hours out of his head, but not having any more children was definitely an appealing idea. Daring the gods a third time just didn't seem wise at all. 

 

Sicut Mater, Ita et Filia Eius: As the mother, so is the daughter


	16. Auctoritas Non Veritas Facit Legem

It was late when the phone rang, Quentin knew that much. All the secretaries and researchers had gone home hours ago, and even the most gung-ho of the junior Watchers were off to their beds by now as well. His office was the only one lit up in this wing of the building, and even that by just one Tiffany lamp on the side table. He thought very seriously about not answering. Sitting in the dark and drinking to commemorate the death of a Slayer was his own little tradition, one he'd managed to avoid for seven full years this time. Surely that deserved at least seven nights of scotch. But he was a Senior Watcher now, and if the phone rang late, it was probably important. “Travers,” he snapped into the phone, his voice still crisp despite the drink. 

“I wasn't sure you'd still be at work, Quint.” It took him a moment to place the voice. He hadn't spoken to Jed Bartlet in several years, and it'd been even longer since Jed had sounded so serious on the phone. But nobody else besides his family ever called him Quint. “How are you doing?” 

“Getting by, getting along,” Quentin blustered into the phone, bringing the glass over to his desk with him. “I suppose you've heard?” 

“It's big news in certain circles,” Jed agreed, his voice still oddly careful. “Bernard Crowley has been speaking very freely about a number of things. He claims he didn't speak up while she was alive because he was afraid of losing Council support.” When Quentin didn't say anything, Jed pushed the question. “Is it true?” 

Quentin looked down at the amber beverage in his glass, swirled it once. “I'm afraid I don't keep up with rumors and innuendos nearly so much these days. Bernard is grieving his Slayer, I'm sure he's saying any number of things. God knows I did.” 

“What's the Cruciamentum, Quentin?” There was steel in Jed's voice now, and Quentin was reminded that this was no longer a callow student, but a grown man and a leader of men. Best to tread carefully. He drained the glass instead. 

“The Cruciamentum,” he began, “is one of the most ancient rites of the Watcher's Council, passed down from antiquity to the present day. A Slayer who attains her majority while in service is tested by temporarily depriving her of her powers, then placing her in a controlled environment to face a vampire. She must rely on her knowledge, skills and weapons rather than her powers to prevail, while her Watcher must trust his Slayer enough to stand aside and allow her to fight. Nikki Wood passed her Cruciamentum with flying colors, years ago. It had nothing to do with her death.” 

“Why would you do that?” Jed demanded. “What possible purpose could that serve?” 

More than you'd imagine, Quentin thought but did not say aloud. The original intent of the Cruciamentum was murky at best, but many reasons for its continuation had been given over time. Perhaps in the far distant past it really had been a test of skill. A Slayer who reached eighteen was either incredibly skilled or neglecting her duty in favor of her own safety; the Cruciamentum would reveal which was true. In more recent years it was counted as a test of loyalty to the Council, a reminder to the Slayer of what hand wielded the tool, a way to move the Slayer line after a troublesome area had been pacified by a skilled Slayer. More compassionately it was a way to shock a jaded slayer back to an appreciation of life, or at least identify one who was losing her will to the fight. But none of those answers would appease the man on the phone. 

“By the time a Slayer reaches eighteen, she has often become inured to the seemingly routine dangers of the night,” he said instead. “Some may even become callous, forgetting why normal human beings are so seemingly helpless in the face of what she slays effortlessly each night. The Cruciamentum reminds her of her humanity, and the fragility of human life.” 

“By killing her?” Jed demanded. 

“Of course not,” Quentin snapped. “Do you think I, of all people, would go along-” He reined himself in with an effort. “The appearance of danger is extremely important, for the Slayer and for her Watcher. If she does not believe she could die, if he does not believe she could die, the test is worthless for both. But the circumstances are actually extremely controlled, with a strike team of trained Watchers on hand to ensure her safety. I've been told that no fewer than three highly competent Watchers supervised Miss Wood's rite of passage. The Council hasn't lost a Slayer in the Cruciamentum for well over a century.” 

There was silence on the line for a moment. “Bernard says she was pregnant during the test.” 

Quentin sighed heavily. He'd hoped at least that tidbit to have been kept quiet, for the child's safety if nothing else. They'd done their best to erase all records of the existence of Nikki's son. “We weren't told,” he said simply. “We had no way of knowing. And before you ask, I don't know what would've happened, that's still beyond my pay grade. But I wouldn't have supported it had I known.” 

“And her leave of absence?” Jed asked neutrally. 

“It wasn't a leave of absence, it was a dereliction of duty,” Quentin poured himself another drink. “While I appreciate the delicacy of her situation, it was irresponsible in the extreme for a Slayer to leave her post and go into hiding. I can't even begin to count the number of innocent lives lost to that decision. I'm just happy she came to her senses and took up her post again despite Bernard's poor advice.” 

“Good lord, Quint,” Jed's voice was reproachful. “She was a young girl with a newborn baby, and you'd condemn her for wanting a safe place to hide? What the hell has become of you, man? What if it had been your Joanie? Would you have made her stay and die?” 

“Oh, fuck yourself sideways,” Quentin snapped suddenly. “It's easy for you to be self-righteous, isn't it, with your simple daytime life and your wife who never became a Slayer? Easy for you to look at the young girl and not at the hundreds of young girls who die when a Slayer doesn't tend her business. Do you think me totally heartless? Do you think I like the calculus that says one girl in all the world, for all the world? If there were a way for a Slayer to retire, I'd be all for it. If we could make strapping young soldiers the Slayer instead of teenage girls, I'd be the first one cheering it on! But it is what it is, and all we can do is make sure that the Slayer is where she is needed, with the knowledge she needs, knowing all the while that we're facilitating her short life and early death. It's just as well you were fired, Jed, you'd have made a shitty Watcher. You haven't got the balls to save the world.” 

“And what does it profit a man if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” Jed quoted softly. “You should get some sleep, Quint, I can hear the scotch in your voice.” 

“Piss off,” Quentin mumbled, but reconsidered the drink he was about to pour. Maybe he ought to try and get some rest. There was a sweet spot with the drinking, where the edge was dulled enough to sleep but before the unconsciousness was so profound he couldn't escape the inevitable nightmares. “Tell Abbey I said hello,” he added in a belated, incongruous nod to politeness. “And if you hear from Bernard again, tell him to shut his fool mouth before he teaches the local demon population everything they need to know about how to bag a Slayer. Having one William the Bloody parading around as a Slayer-killer is more than bad enough.”

“I'll talk to you again later,” Jed told him, and Quentin couldn't decide if that was promise or threat. He couldn't really bring himself to care right now. The call disconnected, leaving him once again alone in the puddle of muted lamplight. He stared around at his bookshelves, filled with demonology texts for sure, but also with dozens of Watcher Diaries going back hundreds of years. This was the way it had always been, this was the way it would always be. He couldn't think of it any other way, because to change would be to take the responsibility onto himself for any new disasters. He had quite enough weight on his shoulders already, thank you. 

 

Auctoritas Non Veritas Facit Legem: Authority, not truth, makes law


	17. A Deo Pio, A Deo Justo, A Deo Scito

Most days at the State House, Jed did his best to remind himself that Republicans were people too. Infuriating people, people with little understanding of the way inflationary pressure and income expenditures worked, but people nonetheless. Lately, however, between hashing out edits of his book with the publisher, dealing with two active little girls, and trying to get something, anything accomplished in state government, he had little patience for them anymore. Unfortunately, he couldn't say most of the things he wanted to say in the public forum, so he mostly had to vent them to his long-suffering wife. Her or the kids, he supposed, but at least Abbey mostly stayed in the room when he was pontificating.

“But what I really don't understand,” he expounded, about fifteen minutes into his latest diatrabe, “is whether they don't actually believe in education at all, or simply believe that magical creatures live underneath the schools and fix the buildings when no one is watching, so that no money needs be spent to keep them in working order. They all say they're for education, they take pictures of themselves at schools, but somehow they can't find the heart to pay an extra penny of property taxes to ensure our children a future?” He paced across the room, hands shoved in his pockets except when he took them out to gesticulate. 

“Have we ruled out the possibility of magical creatures living under schools?” Abbey asked idly, not looking up from where she was laboriously sewing a nametag into Ellie's coat. For a woman who could place dozens of sutures into living flesh daily, she wasn't much of a seamstress of fabric. “I mean, there are lots of demons out there.” 

“I'm fairly sure that if there are any demons living under schools, Abigail, that they are not there to help out,” Jed retorted. “But the future, that's another thing! Have you seen the way costs are rising for college all across the country? It's going to get to the point where a student won't be able to work his way through college without two jobs and a keen eye at the horse races! And yet the Republicans seem to feel it would encourage indolence to provide scholarship money, as though students who can earn straight As all through high school know nothing about hard work and dedication!” 

“It's criminal all right,” Abbey murmured vaguely, turning the jacket inside out and frowning at it. “Is it possible that this is Liz's coat? They both wanted pink this year.” 

“And that goes for all students, and all families!” Jed barreled on, not about to lose steam now. “Including our family right here!” 

“Maybe we can convince them to change their names,” Abbey mused. “I'm not redoing that label.” 

“You and I, Abigail, we've worked hard our entire lives, gotten our educations, but we are not rich people-” He ignored her snort, he did not count future inheritance as actual wealth. “We're going to have to set aside money for two full college tuitions-” 

“Three,” Abbey interjected, still studying her work with a furrowed brow. 

“And that kind of money just doesn't grow on trees for the average New Hampshire family, no matter what the Repub- what?” He blinked and turned to face her. “Why three?” 

Abbey blinked at him, finally setting the coat down. “Well, ah, I was trying to find a way to tell you this, but I guess the cat's out of the bag now.” She smiled at him, a little ruefully. “Birth control pills are a wonderful thing, but they aren't entirely infallible. I hope you haven't already made too many plans for March.” 

Jed sat down heavily in his favorite chair, all thoughts of Republicans banished for the moment. “I thought- but we weren't-” He shook himself, trying to get his scattered thoughts into some semblance of order. “Three is a nice round number,” he managed with a smile he hoped wasn't too sickly. “And who does anything in March in this state? We'll be driving through foot-deep ice puddles to get you to the hospital, but other than that, the timing is ideal. I won't even be running for anything.” 

She studied his face, kneading the little pink coat between her sturdy fingers. “Are you okay?” she asked him. 

“Fine, I'm fine,” he assured her. “You know I love our children, another one will be a blessing. I just... I worry.” 

“I know,” she murmured, coming to sit on the arm of his chair. He rested a hand over her stomach, still barely thickened. “I worry too. We just have to wait and see.” 

** 

The nursery was eerie when lit only by candlelight, even the innocuous stuffed animals and wall decorations casting flickering shadows over the silent inhabitants. Now that the green glow had faded from the room, it seemed darker and more threatening than ever. Zoey slept peacefully on the blanket they'd laid on the floor, unaware of what might become of her someday. A good sleeper despite being born so early, she'd barely stirred even when the oil was smeared on her. Jed and Abbey sat on either side of her, both of them silent, neither of them knowing what to say. 

“It's still only a chance,” Abbey finally managed. “There are so many Potentials out there. Surely New Hampshire isn't much of a hotbed of demonic activity. There's no reason she'd ever be Called...” 

“You're right,” Jed rasped, his throat feeling incredibly dry after the ritual. “Everything needs to align just so for any girl to be Called, and there are Potentials born and discovered every year. The chances are very small...” He needed to believe it. He didn't think he could go on without being able to believe it. 

“Are you going to call Quentin?” she asked. “He might be able to give you a clearer picture of how many Potentials there are now, where they're spread out.” She smiled faintly. “You could do one of those distribution matrices you're so fond of.” 

Jed didn't crack a smile. “I like Quentin, Quentin is my friend. But for this, I don't trust him or anyone else. He's not the man I once knew, but I don't know how deep the change really goes. They may find out anyway, the Council does locate most Potentials, but I've no intention of just bearing her over. We'll keep this to ourselves for now.” 

Abbey nodded, reaching out to pick up the swaddled bundle. “We won't let anything happen to you,” she whispered, the words barely enough to ruffle the shock of red hair on the baby's head. “You're going to have a long and happy life.” She looked up at Jed with a half smile. “You know, it's 1980 now, so if that law they're agitating for in Congress goes through, she won't be able to drink until next century.” 

“Or even longer, if I have any say in it!” Jed put on his best gruff father voice, sensing that both of them needed as much normalcy as possible in this moment. “I intend to teach all of them about the many benefits of the cloistered lifestyle and the timeless fashion of a nun's habit. I have high hopes.” 

She chuckled. “Good luck with that. I just want them to learn to do their own sewing.” 

As the candles began to gutter in their own wax, she scooted around the circle to cuddle herself up next to Jed. He put an arm around her and Zoey both, holding them close. “I got into politics to make this a better world for our children. That hasn't changed. We're just opening up a new front in the battle.”

 

A Deo Pio, A Deo Justo, A Deo Scito: A righteous God, a just God, a wise God


	18. Corruptio Optimi Pessima Est

“Zoey Patricia Bartlet, you come back here this instant!” Abbey chased her seven-year old daughter's bicycle out of the driveway, knowing she was looking the fool but not caring for the moment. Unlike her older sisters, both of whom had been content to learn to ride their bikes under controlled circumstances and with their father present to remove the training wheels, Zoey had decided that today was the day, wedged her training wheels sideways so they could not help her, and taken off down the long, hilly driveway the moment her mother's back was turned. Abbey was in good shape for a woman her age (and a grandmother at that, good god, a grandmother at forty-one), but she had little chance of catching up with a small Potential on a bicycle. All she could do was tag along behind, cringing and desperately hoping no cars came along.   
Zoey was whooping happily, fearless as ever, a noise that carried behind her even as she rounded the curve at the bottom of the driveway. Abbey ran faster when the noise abruptly stopped, but there was no screeching of brakes, no crashing noise, no wailing. When she finally made it to the street she found Zoey miraculously still upright on her bike, staring with great curiosity at the two men on the sidewalk who'd curtailed her flight. Abbey was winded, but not so much that she couldn't put herself between her daughter and possible danger. “Quentin,” she managed to gasp out, hoping she sounded at least a little threatening. 

Probably not, given the way a tiny smile tugged at the edges of Quentin Travers' mouth. “Abigail,” he replied with careful politeness. “It's been quite a long time. You're looking very well.” 

“You look about the same as always,” she offered, reaching back to take hold of Zoey's handlebars before the child got any more bright ideas. “I have to say I wasn't expecting to see you in the neighborhood.” 

“No, I suppose not,” he agreed. “Allow me to introduce my colleague, Rupert Giles.” He gestured fractionally towards the younger man, a painfully earnest-looking young fellow who had to be stifling in his long shirtsleeves in the August heat. 

Rupert extended a hand hastily. “It's a great- a great pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, stammering just a little. 

“Rupert is a researcher for the Council, but he's in training to be a field Watcher,” Quentin told her. At this hour, in this heat, the street was all but deserted of potential listening ears. “A very fine family, third generation!” 

“How proud you must be,” Abbey murmured halfheartedly, returning the handshake. As the wife of a United States Congressman, she had more than enough experience in social handshaking with people she'd rather not touch with a ten-foot pole. Rupert Giles at least had the sense to be polite, not squeezing too hard nor holding too long. His hand was a little sweaty, as she'd expected. 

“I imagine you know why we're here,” Quentin began, obviously finished with pleasantries for now. “Might we go inside and discuss it with you?” 

“Oh, I don't think that's very likely,” she demurred, giving them a smile that showed teeth. Rupert took a half-step back, but Quentin was unfazed. “Anything you want to say to me, you can say out here where all my neighbors can see us out their windows. 

Quentin frowned, looking quite put out. “Honestly, Abbey, how long have we known each other now? Twenty years and more, and you're worried I'm going to kidnap your little girls?” The plural instantly caught Abbey's attention, stiffening her spine and tightening her grip on Zoey's bike. Zoey herself was being quiet and watching for once, clearly fascinated. Quentin noticed the gesture, raising his hands slightly. “We've known about Zoey almost as long as I imagine you have, given Jed's facility with that particular spell. Why would we have any reason to interfere with a girl being raised by the two of you? The Council only intervenes when there is real immediate need, and she's obviously safe and happy.” 

“And yet here you are,” Abbey managed through nearly-gritted teeth. She wished with all her heart that Jed weren't going to be at a campaign event in Nashua for another three hours. “Just popped over from London to say hello?” 

“I wanted to offer my congratulations on your happy occasion,” he insisted with a smile that almost seemed real. “I'm sure your Elizabeth made a beautiful bride and is proving to be a fine mother. She's staying with you for the moment, isn't that the case?” 

“What. Do. You. Want.” Abbey's glare had gotten better men than Quentin shaking in their boots, and poor young Rupert was looking quite alarmed. 

“Are you really going to insist on talking out here in this heat?” Quentin asked again, shifting slightly from foot to foot. “It's absolutely beastly.” 

“Zoey, go on and run back to the house,” Abbey told her daughter in a voice that brooked no argument. “I'll bring your bike up with me in a few minutes.” Zoey looked vaguely mutinous for a moment, then decided to obey for once in her short life and dashed away on sturdy legs and pink sneakers. “Quentin, twenty years ago I counted you a good friend because you were a friend to my husband. Ten years ago, we started hearing rumors about the Watcher's Council that shook both of us to the core. And now here you are, the new face and voice of the Watcher's Council himself, and you wonder why I'm not happier to see you?” 

Quentin actually seemed abashed for a moment. “Abbey, you know I don't agree with all the Council's policies and procedures. In an organization literally thousands of years old, institutional change is slow and sometimes it is very awkward. And rumors always abound whenever there are disgruntled people who don't like the new way of doing things. I swear to you that I have never ordered the removal of any Potential from her family unless her life or health were in jeopardy if she was left there.” 

“That gives you a lot of latitude to play with,” Abbey snapped in return. “If you count “unwilling to give their child up to Watcher training” as placing them in deadly danger. I know how you feel about the families of Potentials, Quentin. We both remember the Lymans.” 

“That has nothing to do with any of this!” Quentin insisted, color rising in his face that had little to do with the hot weather. “You are allowing your parochial fears to blind you to the reality of the Council's work! The girls must be trained, and they will be trained!” 

“Over my dead body,” Abbey growled, taking a step forward. It'd been a long time since her own training, but she kept up as best she could. Certainly enough to give a chubby desk Watcher a run for his money. 

“Excuse me, if I may?” Rupert was suddenly standing in between them, towering over both of them and looking gangly, apologetic, and completely immovable. “I'm afraid we are getting off on the wrong foot here, Mrs. Bartlet. We have absolutely no intention of taking Zoey or Annie anywhere, or of interfering with your ability to raise them as you see fit. The reason we are visiting is twofold, to maintain contact with a family raising Potentials, of course, but also in the hopes that we might work with you on documenting your family tree. It is quite, quite rare to have Potential crop up in three generations of the same family, as I'm sure you're aware, and I would be quite thrilled to have a chance to look into your ancestry for possible reasons why.” 

Abbey wasn't sure she was buying what this oh-so-polite young man had to sell, but his earnestness had her relaxing fractionally. “You couldn't have said that to start with?” she asked Quentin acerbically. 

Quentin pulled at his collar. “I did say we weren't here for your girls,” he pointed out defensively. “You simply jumped to conclusions. But Rupert is quite right in everything he said. Honestly we don't even need to see the girls, though seven is a good age to get a Potential started in her understanding of the supernatural world. I'm sure she's quite bright.” 

“She is,” Abbey assured him, “and I'm glad you've resigned yourself to not getting a real introduction. Seven o'clock tomorrow night, at Jed's Congressional office, not our home. We'll bring the family Bibles, you help us find some answers. I'm tired of little girls I love being in jeopardy.” Without even giving him a chance to respond, Abbey turned and headed back up her driveway, her marvelous exit spoiled only a little by the small pink bike she had to haul alongside her. She'd thought Liz's family would be safe, with Liz not even a Potential herself, but she'd been wrong. When was this madness going to end? 

 

Corruptio Optimi Pessima Est: The corruption of the best is the worst


	19. Latet Anguis In Herba

It took Abbey about three days after the election to appreciate how different it was to win a gubernatorial race than a Congressional race. In the currency of politics, Congressmen were a dime a dozen, even senators came two to a state, but governors were an entirely different kettle of fish. She'd thought she'd been prepared by the campaign for the intense scrutiny on their family, but she had always believed it would start to wear off. So far, that didn't seem to be happening. That was more than a little bit nerve-wracking, given the vampire-shaped skeletons hiding in their closets, but she tried to make the best of it. By the time the family arrived at the Governor's Mansion in Concord, where they'd be living for at least the next four years, her face ached from smiling. 

She was able to endure the entire tour with the smile still on her face, only relaxing her guard when their handlers finally left them alone in the house to get a feel for the place before they moved in. “This,” she announced, standing in the main foyer, “is the ugliest wallpaper it has ever been my misfortune to cast my eyes upon.” 

The comment drew a snort from Gwendolyn, who was standing next to Abbey with a sleeping Annie on her shoulder. Gwendolyn was Quentin's compromise position, a Watcher for the girls who would live with the family, much as Jed had with the Barringtons, to make sure they were fully protected and given training as they grew up. Three-year old Annie was still too young, of course, but at ten Zoey was already showing promise in gymnastics, martial arts and basic swordsmanship. It was just more reason for Abbey to eye the antiques all over the house with dismay. “At least it's quite large,” Gwendolyn offered. “Even with Elizabeth and Doug and myself all on the premises, there will be room for everyone.” 

“True,” Abbey allowed. “And with Liz and Doug in the carriage house, we won't have to listen to them arguing all the time,” she added, sotto voce. It wasn't exactly a surprise that Liz's relationship had wound up being a textbook case of “marry in haste, repent at leisure,” given how many times Abbey and Jed had tried to talk sense into her before the wedding, but she didn't relish hearing every detail of that repentance through the thin walls of their adjacent bedrooms. Jed had already sworn that the next home he bought would be not only very rural, a long-held dream of his, but have extremely thick insulation. She approved of that part. 

“I think we're going to put you at the end of the hall, in the room next to Zoey's, if that's all right with you,” she told Gwendolyn, even as she began to climb the stairs. “You'll have the back stairs for a little more freedom to come in and out, and it looks to have its own bathroom.” 

“It sounds like a welcome relief, truly,” Gwendolyn remarked, sounding only a little bit rueful. It had been a bit of a shock for the young Watcher three years ago when she'd arrived in the States to find that she would be expected to share a single-family home with the Bartlets and their children, plus Liz's husband and daughter. The stiff upper lip had prevailed, aside from the occasional too-pointed comment, but it was nice for all of them to be getting out of that place. 

“Miss Post, Miss Post!” came Zoey's excited voice from the top of the stairs. “Watch me!” With no more warning than that, Zoey came zooming down the banister as though it were greased, flying off the end and landing with a neat sommersault. “Ta-da!” 

Gwendolyn offered her the faint smile that was her version of high praise. “Good form on the sommersault,” she complimented, “but you held the banister with both hands, leaving no room for a weapon. A vampire never has to draw its weapons, so a Slayer must always be prepared.” 

Zoey nodded solemnly at the critique, while Abbey massaged her temples. “Zoey, what's the rule about gymnastics practice in the house?” she chided. 

“Only in the garage,” Zoey admitted with a huge, put-upon sigh. “But it doesn't make sense, Mom! If there are vampires, they won't come to the garage! They'll go straight for the front door!” 

“Where they will not be able to get in,” Abbey pointed out. “And this way you don't risk us breaking any priceless items of New Hampshire heritage. Now go see what Ellie is doing, make sure she hasn't gotten lost in the library.” As Zoey ran off, she turned once again to Gwendolyn. “Why don't you bring Annie upstairs, we'll lay her down on one of the beds.” 

The master bedroom was the only one that currently had bed linens, so they wound up in there by default, Gwendolyn carefully settling the little girl down in the middle of the large bed. As she straightened, she met Abbey's eyes. “I believe I ought to inform you now that I won't be staying for much longer,” she said matter-of-factly. “I have applied for a transfer of duties, and I believe I will be reassigned sometime within the next few months.” 

“Oh?” Abbey asked, raising her eyebrows. The news was unexpected but not truly surprising; Gwendolyn had always done her job but never seemed particularly settled. She'd certainly never made friends with anyone, even Zoey. “Are you unhappy with us?” 

“Please don't take it personally,” Gwendolyn told her with a quick wave of her hand. “Your family is perfectly acceptable and you've always treated me well, I have no complaints. But frankly, I did not join the Watcher's Council to become a nanny to a pair of little girls who are, in my opinion, unlikely to ever be called. I'd like to advance within the organization, and this is not a position from which to do that.” 

Abbey flattened her mouth into a line, but nodded. “I see. Well, Zoey will miss you, I'm sure, but I expect the Council will send us a replacement after you go?” 

“Yes, I've already spoken with them about it,” Gwendolyn confirmed. “Your family's high profile is going to cause a problem, of course, but I'm sure they'll come up with some kind of solution.” She smiled thinly. “I don't suppose you'll change your mind about sending Zoey to a perfectly lovely boarding school in London?” 

“That seems unlikely,” Abbey confirmed with a tight-lipped smile of her own. “What are you going to be doing in your next assignment?” 

“There are a number of particularly powerful artifacts believed to be located in the United States that the Council is interested in securing before they fall into the wrong hands,” Gwendolyn replied. “I'll be joining a research and recovery team based out of New York City. Not glamorous work, but quite important.” She looked over to Annie on the bed. “After the morning this one has had, I imagine she'll sleep at least an hour. I think I'll go have a look at my bedroom, then start making arrangements for having my books transferred over. I shall see you at suppertime?” 

“Yes, that's fine,” Abbey agreed, sitting down on the edge of the bed herself. She'd never really liked Gwendolyn that much, but at least the woman was a known quantity and someone she could trust around the children. Getting a new Watcher to go along with all the new staff in the office and in the house was one headache she really didn't need right now. She sighed, laying down on the bed next to her somnolent granddaughter. After leaving her in the lurch like this, she just hoped Gwendolyn found something big and important enough to justify all the trouble.

 

Latet Anguis In Herba: A snake lurks in the grass


	20. Qui Dormit Non Peccat

Jed hated laying in bed sick. Hated it with a passion, hated it far more than the actual pain and discomfort of being sick and still walking around. Time was in his life when he'd get a cold or the flu and just keep on trucking without a thought to doing otherwise. He'd been young and healthy, full of pep and with a thousand important things to do. Now, though... And it wasn't as though fifty-four were ancient, either! By rights he should still be filled with that energy and drive, especially with the entire state of New Hampshire to look after. He most certainly should not be in his home, flat on his back, while his wife kept an eagle eye on him and twitted him about not letting his fever climb too high. 

Even worse, he decided, was when Abbey had to leave the house for some excruciating social function that demanded the presence of the governor's wife, leaving him in the capable and nervous hands of his middle daughter. At twenty, Ellie was a shining star in her pre-med program as far as grades, but she still came home every weekend instead of going and spending time with friends or dating boys. Abbey worried about her, but Jed was more than happy to encourage his little girl to stay in the coop as long as possible. Except, of course, when she was shoving a thermometer into his mouth every ten minutes while he was trying to watch the news. 

“I'm fine!” he finally insisted, his voice a little more irritable than he'd intended as he pulled the thermometer from his mouth. “I have the flu, I'm not in danger of dying!” 

Ellie rounded her back and ducked her head, retreating from his ire. That was the part Jed did worry about; how had they managed to raise a child with no gumption? “Sorry Dad, but you know that a fever can make your thing worse...” she murmured. Even in the privacy of their own home, they never used the words “multiple sclerosis,” as though saying them aloud could summon its dread gaze. 

“It's all right, sweetheart,” he sighed. “I didn't mean to yell. But I've taken the pills and I've gulped down the water, and the tea, and I am even open to the possibility of some of that terrible canned chicken soup your mother makes when she comes home. You've both taken very good care of me and now I just want to lay here in my sickness and contemplate the frailness of the human form. And if I'm very lucky, I might catch the sports section of the six o'clock news as well.” 

This soliloquy drew a little snort of laughter from Ellie, enough that she stopped hiding behind her hair and looked at him again. “What if I go out and get you some chicken soup from The County Kitchen instead?” she offered. “I think it's got a lot more vitamins and actual chicken parts in it.” 

“You are a good child,” he told her. “Much better than those other, eviller children. Where is Zoey tonight anyway?” 

“Up in her room,” Ellie reported, “on the phone as usual.” She rolled her eyes. “Elena gave her the evening off from training because she's got a history test tomorrow, and Zoey swears they're studying over the phone, but they're not.” 

“Putting the telephone in her bedroom was definitely a mistake,” Jed decided. “But it was that or let her get her learner's permit.” 

“As a future doctor, I say you made the right choice,” Ellie told him. “Far fewer possible casualties this way.” She put her hands on her knees and stood up. “If you're doing all right for now, I'm going to do some studying too. Remember to stay on the couch or Mom will kill both of us.” 

“That seems counterproductive,” Jed muttered, but accepted Ellie's kiss on the forehead with a little smile before stretching out to relax. Maybe being sick wasn't entirely bad, he rarely got an opportunity to relax in his own living room with full control of the television, master of his own domain- 

“Dad, the phone's ringing!” Ellie called from the kitchen. Jed looked quizzically at the phone next to the couch. “The bag phone!” 

“Well then answer it, sweetheart!” he called back, sighing. He hated that machine. There was no getting away from it all when one was forever bringing it with in the form of a phone with no handy wall tether. Phones were getting smaller by the year, too, so eventually he'd probably be compelled to buy one small enough for a briefcase or even a pocket, the better to torment him with. 

Ellie appeared in the doorway, bag clutched under one arm, receiver to her ear. “It's Mr. Travers,” she reported, then passed over the entire apparatus. 

“Does no one ever answer the telephone at your house?” was Quentin's first question upon Jed's greeting. 

“I have a sixteen year old daughter,” Jed reminded him ruefully. “She must be ignoring the call waiting again. I'll thrash her soundly later on your behalf.” 

Quentin snorted disbelief. “More likely you'll finally invest in that second phone line so you don't have to play the heavy with any of your daughters. I've known you too long, Jed.” 

“I'm outnumbered four to one here!” Jed protested, with perhaps just a hint of whine in his voice. “Five if you count the female Watchers you keep sending me. Many people consider me a powerful man, Quint. I simply don't understand why none of them live under this roof.” 

“It's quite rich that you complain to me about female Watchers in a home full of nubile young women, Jed, given that you are the textbook study as to why we send them,” Quentin reminded him with a smirk Jed could hear over the phone. 

“I'll thank you not to call any of my girls nubile, you filthy old man,” Jed grumbled. “And I waited until she was eighteen, there was nothing wrong with any of it, save in the dirty minds of a reactionary Council.” 

“Yes, and given the way it absolutely ruined your life and prevented you from gaining even a small measure of success, we all feel tremendously sorry for you, I assure you.” 

“I don't know why I talk to you at all.” Jed paused. “Come to think of it, why am I talking to you? It must be something important if you called the bag phone.” 

Quentin sighed heavily, his posture of good humor slipping away. “I'm afraid Miss Cohen's term of duty has ended,” he told Jed, the weight of emotion concealed behind the formal words. 

“I'm very sorry to hear that,” Jed said quietly. “Do you know what happened?” 

“We're still gathering details as to exactly how and when.” Quentin replied. “Her Watcher is utterly useless, quite inconsolable. If there's a supernatural threat running amok in California right now, we won't find much out from him.” His voice was an odd mixture of disdain and sympathy, with disdain in the lead for the moment. “We've located the new Slayer.” 

For just a moment, Jed felt a thrill of terror in his very bones. Surely Quentin wouldn't have joked with him if that were what he was calling about... “Where is she? Who's her Watcher?” 

“She's in California.” From the sound of his voice, Quentin noticed the moment of panic. “Another reason to suspect that whatever killed Miss Cohen may still be a significant threat. Of course there's also the Hellmouth there, which has been reporting increased activity in the past few years. As for the Watcher though, she hasn't got one. Undiscovered.” Now he just sounded as though he'd swallowed a lemon. 

“Another one? That's bad luck,” Jed commented with a grimace. The only thing he could think of worse than having someone in his family called was having one called untrained. It was the reason he'd allowed Zoey to be trained so comprehensively, the reason he'd urged Liz to do the same with Annie. 

“It's more than bad luck,” Quentin grumbled darkly. “I'm becoming increasingly convinced that something is interfering with our ability to detect Potentials, to the detriment of all of us. But I've sent her Merrick Jameson-Smythe to bring her up to snuff.” 

“Merrick?” Jed repeated incredulously. “I thought he was retired.” Completely burnt out was the quiet word that had gone around beneath the talk of retirement, not that the man hadn't earned it in spades. He'd trained more Slayers than anyone else Jed had ever heard of. 

“Yes, he retired to the West Coast of the US, which means he's already well-placed,” Quentin pointed out. “And he has a great deal of experience with short-timers, you must admit.” 

Jed winced at that description. “You sound as though you don't hold out much hope for the girl.” 

“Her predecessor had almost five years put in and was apparently still at her peak,” Quentin reminded him. “Whatever killed her is unlikely to be stopped long by an untrained fifteen-year-old, no matter who we send to give her the crash course in slaying. Our best hope is that she will be able to gain intelligence on what we are dealing with, then hold the line long enough for us to mobilize our allies and move a strike team into position. A short career does not mean a wasted one,” he reminded Jed, just a little sharply. 

“Of course not,” Jed assured him quickly. “I just hope Merrick doesn't overwhelm the poor girl. But I'm still a little confused as to why you're calling me with this news. It's been quite some time since you and I discussed the nitty-gritty of new Slayers.” 

“Well,” began Quentin, “you are, some would say, a powerful man...” 

“Oh no,” Jed groaned. “I'm going to remind you that the United States is a very large country, and there are several Englands worth of space between New Hampshire and California. There's not a lot that I can do to smooth the way for you out there.” 

“Perhaps not a lot,” Quentin acknowledged slyly, “but you do know the governor, yes? Belong to the same political party? Sometimes a discreet word in the ear is worth more than you know. And there's nothing pending right at the moment, I just wanted to let you know, plant the idea in your mind.” 

Jed sighed. “That sounds distressingly like politics to me, and you know how I feel about that. But I do like the world intact and undestroyed, so I'll do what I can for you. What's the girl's name, by the way?” 

There was a noticeable pause from Quentin before he finally said, “Buffy Summers.” 

“Buffy?” Jed repeated. “That's a new one. Do you think her parents were hippies, or channeling Jay Gatsby?” 

“I'm sure I have no idea,” Quentin replied dryly. “We did check, it's legally Buffy, not Elizabeth. There is absolutely no accounting for taste. I'm afraid I can't talk for too long, there's a great deal to put in order here with the changing of the guard. Good luck with winning your phone back.” 

“Thanks,” Jed said dryly. “Keep in touch, let me know what happens with the girl. Maybe she'll surprise you.” 

“I've been surprised before,” Quentin admitted, “but not often. Goodnight, Jed.” 

Jed put the phone back in its bag, as always having to fiddle with the straps for thirty seconds before it was properly seated again, then lay back down on the couch. The news was still on, but somehow the pleasure of an idle evening was gone. Fifteen years old and the best of her life now behind her, the rest of her life able to be measured out in coffee-spoons. He said a prayer for the new Slayer as he always did, and for the old Slayer and the Watcher left behind, as he also always did, then turned the channel from news to baseball. As he watched, he rubbed his leg idly and tried to ignore the uncomfortable pins and needles sensation. If he didn't pay attention, it would usually go away. 

 

Qui Dormit Non Peccat: He who sleeps does not sin


	21. Finis Origine Pendet

“What is this?” Abbey asked, staring down at the napkin Jed had tossed onto the table. “Bartlet for America?” 

“My latest gift from Leo,” Jed explained with a faint smile. Abbey was normally pretty good at reading her husband's face, but today he was tough to pin down. Excited, but much more than that as well. 

“Are you two starting a theme restaurant?” she asked archly. “One of you should probably learn how to cook first. You can only get by on charm and kitsch for so long.” 

“Lassiter's term is ending in 1998,” he reminded her. “The field is wide open and people are ready for a change.” 

“People are ready for John Hoynes, you mean,” she corrected. “He's been campaigning for nearly a year already, he's the prohibitive favorite. Leo wouldn't go for for...” She looked at the napkin again. “Oh no. No, no, no.” 

“And why not?” he asked immediately. No matter what Jed thought of his chances privately, he was too much of a scrapper not to dig his heels in when told he couldn't do something. Abbey both loved and hated that about him. Today she was swinging a bit more toward the hate side. “I'm a two-term governor with Congressional experience, a Nobel laureate, an economic expert, a charismatic speaker, and a rather handsome man, if I do say so myself.” He grinned at her. “And I have a highly photogenic family, to boot.” 

“You're a jackass with a head the size of New Hampshire,” Abbey muttered in return. In a more conversational tone she attempted reason. “You're an excellent governor, Jed, you've done great work in this state. You could continue to do great work for as long as you want to. If you go out on the campaign trail against John Hoynes, you're going to get your ass kicked! Are you seriously considering-” 

Jed laughed uproariously, sinking down in the chair opposite her. “The look on your face!” he burst out, wiping tears from the corner of his eye. She glared at him. “Come on, Abigail, you can't believe I'd be naive enough to think I have a chance against Hoynes!” 

“Then what's the napkin about?” 

He shrugged. “Leo is all het up about a campaign, bringing in one of his proteges and trying to package me up for a national audience. Personally I think he just misses politics so much he doesn't know what to do with himself. It's not easy to find a job to top being Secretary of Labor that's still in politics, but running a presidential campaign is one of them. I'm thinking about humoring him for a few months.” 

“What good is that going to do?” Abbey asked skeptically. “Aside from the secret support group for Leo, I mean.” 

“I'll get to make speeches!” he announced cheerfully. “To a much wider audience, ideally, than I'll ever reach as Governor. I'm a powerful man, Abigail, but very few people seem to care what I have to say.” His face was perilously close to a pout, and god help her but it was pretty cute. 

“Well, you do like to listen to yourself talk,” she allowed with a half-smile. “I can see where that would be a draw. And if it's just for the pre-primary season, you'll be done long before you need to start thinking about your real reelection campaign.” 

“Why do I need a reelection campaign?” Jed asked, sounding mildly affronted. “The people love me!” 

“Sure they do,” she agreed because it was demonstrably true, “but that doesn't mean you should stop trying to woo them. You've got to put in a little effort to keep the romance alive, sweetheart.” 

“You're a wise woman,” he agreed, shifting his chair around to put it a little closer to hers. “Keeping the romance alive is important. Have I mentioned lately how much I like your new haircut, and how very nice you look in that pantsuit?” He waggled his eyebrows. 

Abbey rolled her eyes. “Very smooth, I almost didn't see that coming,” she teased. “Who's the protege Leo wants to bring on?” 

“Well, that's the funny thing,” Jed told her, abandoning his attempts at corny seduction for the moment. “It's an up-and-coming young Democratic operative who's currently working on the Hoynes campaign, but Leo is convinced he can get him on board. His name's Josh Lyman.” 

“Lyman,” Abbey murmured, the name tickling her brain for a moment before she could place it. The look on Jed's face told her she wasn't just imagining a connection, there was one somewhere. A hazy memory of a funeral surfaced, and suddenly the pieces dropped into place. “Wait... you mean Lyman as in Leo's old friend Noah Lyman, as in Quentin's girl Joanie Lyman... the little brother?” 

Jed's smile was crooked. “It's a strange, small little world, isn't it?” he asked rhetorically. “Apparently he's quite the wunderkind in DC, only thirty-five and he was already Legislative Director and Director of Floor Operations for the House Democrats before John Hoynes snapped him up.” 

“Sounds like he's destined for great things,” Abbey agreed. “Why would Leo want to bring him onto a campaign that's not?” 

Jed shrugged. “Maybe just to get Hoynes' hooks out of him, maybe Leo's got a little bit of wishful thinking going on. Come on, Abigail, we'll fundraise a little, see some more of the country, be back in New Hampshire by New Years. It'll be fun!” 

Abbey sighed. “Famous last words.” 

***

“I don't even understand what's happening right now.” Abbey stared at the newspaper she had spread out in front of her at the breakfast table. This was one of their rare breakfasts alone, without one eager campaign staffer or another angling for just a few minutes of Jed's time. “This makes no sense to me.” 

“It's called momentum, Abigail,” Jed declared sententiously as he buttered his toast. “It's a rare and magnificent thing, and we appear to have grabbed hold of some. The American people are ready for a change, and the voters in four states have already said so.” 

She glared at him. “You said we'd be home by New Year's,” she reminded him in the quietest yell she could manage, more an angry hiss. “I hate to have to point this out, but we've not only missed New Year, we've missed Chinese New Year and show no signs of slowing down! Jed, these papers are starting to say you could win the nomination!” 

“Steve out there says that if we manage to win Illinois, we're going to run the table at the nominating convention,” Jed said almost meditatively. “Wouldn't that be something?” 

“His name is Sam,” Abbey reminded him acerbically, “and nobody said anything about you actually being nominated! That is not what we got into this race to do! You were going to make speeches to pull Hoynes to the left and help Leo find a real job! You were not trying to become President!” 

“Maybe I wasn't then, but it was mostly from lack of vision,” he insisted. “Don't you see, Abbey? We wanted to pull Hoynes to the left, but if we can get the nomination, we can pull the whole country to the left! Think of all the programs that need our attention, think of all the good I could do in that office!” He had his palms flat on the table now, full debating mode. 

“Lack of vision is the problem, Jed!” she spat, too worried and angry to even approach tactful. “And lack of motor control, lack of cognitive function... We're lying to these nice people, Jed, and it's not going to end well. What happens if you become President and have an attack in the Oval Office? What happens if you can't finish out your term because you're blind or paralyzed or, god forbid, lose your faculties?” 

“We're not lying to anybody, dammit!” Jed insisted, pounding the table lightly. Even in the middle of a fight they were both discreet. “I have given them my physical exam results, all the tests anyone has asked me for, and gotten a letter of recommendation from a respectable physician. I've done everything asked of me, and if they don't ask me for a complete health history, then I'm hardly obliged to beg them to take one! I'm asymptomatic, Abbey, you know that. I haven't had an attack in two years, and there's no reason to think that's going to change any time soon.” 

“Four years is a long time, and eight years is an eternity in MS,” Abbey reminded him heavily. “Relapsing-remitting can turn into secondary-progressive without warning. And as if that isn't enough, what about the other skeletons in our closets? Zoey is still latent, for God's sake! And Annie, think about her! What would happen if the President's granddaughter were to be Called?” 

“Then she'd have the 82nd Airborne backing her up on her nightly patrols,” Jed insisted with a firm set to his jaw. 

Abbey rolled her eyes. “Because I'm sure that would go over very well with Congress and the American people. Even now all it would take is one really enterprising investigative journalist to start delving into our nannies and your old job and some of our friends and they've suddenly got a picture of the entire East Coast operations of the Watcher's Council! And do you think Liz really wants to have all the same garbage dragged up about her marriage that those muckrakers tried to haul out in your gubernatorial campaign? We deserve our privacy, Jed, we need it.” 

Jed rubbed a hand over his face. “I'm sure there's something we can do to get out ahead of that,” he told her. “A friendly journalist, maybe, one who's already in the know. Get him or her to write the story on us, a nice boring story with just enough salacious details to make it sound as though we're terribly dull people with one or two good anecdotes to share. If we look boring and banal, who's going to bother to dig that much deeper? The American people lose interest in the boring very quickly.” 

“And the other thing?” Abbey pressed. 

“Eight years is probably too long to hope for, you're right,” he agreed. “But four is doable, surely? You'll keep giving me the medication just like you have been, and I'll keep taking my naps and letting you bully me into laying down more often than I need. All I really need is four years to make a real difference.” Jed leaned across the table towards her, his eyes shining. “Just think about it Abbey, think of all the good we could do from the White House.” 

Abbey sighed. “Four years might be doable,” she finally allowed, trying not to think about famous last words. 

 

Finis Origine Pendet: The end depends upon the beginning


	22. Facilis Descensus Averno

It had been many years since Quentin had needed to answer his own phone while at work, but unfortunately the buzz of the intercom system was just as annoying and far more frequent. “Mr. Travers, I have a Jed Bartlet holding on Line 2 for you,” came the slightly nasal voice of his secretary, Irene. “Shall I give him the polite brush-off?” Irene was an efficient woman, but she had little regard for Americans, especially, Quentin suspected, ones named 'Jed.' 

He pressed the intercom button. “Irene, the 'Jed Bartlet' you're trying to fob off is in fact Governor Jed Bartlet, one of the two major candidates for the American presidency this fall. Do you never see any world news at all? He also happens to be a personal friend of mine, so you may go ahead and put him through, and then please go find a newspaper and read it.” 

He could hear Irene's huff over the intercom, but a moment later the phone rang. His first impulse was to say “So I hear there's some kind of powerful man on the phone,” but training and long habit had suppressed his sense of fun in ways he found depressing to think of too often. Instead he tossed off a simple “Hello, this is Quentin Travers.” 

“You know Quint, I don't think your secretary is very fond of me,” came Jed's amused voice over the phone line. “I don't think I've spent such a long time on hold since before the Democratic National Convention.” 

“Don't take it personally,” Quentin advised, “she can't abide anyone who doesn't use Received Pronunciation. Bit of a snob, really, but she's an excellent researcher and she's re-indexed all my files to some esoteric system so I can't fire her.”

“That was the first thing Mrs. Landingham did when she came to work for me,” Jed recalled sympathetically. “She's taught the same system to all the girls we hired on for the campaign as well, so now they're all indispensible. If we go to the White House they'll be the ones running the country. Which doesn't seem to bother her at all, come to think of it. Have we been had?” 

“It's entirely possible,” Quentin agreed gravely. “But there's not much we can do about it at this point. It's a bit of a surprise to hear from you, I hear that you are quite a busy man these days.” 

“Yes, well, it's this little side project I've taken on, involves a lot of travel and some speaking engagements,” Jed was the soul of modesty. “I'm actually in Southern California for the next two days, trying to convince the residents of the largest state to vote for a man from one of the smallest. But it occurred to me that I have a golden opportunity to look up Rupert Giles and Miss Summers. It's been nearly ten years since we did that research project together, and much longer since I've met a Slayer.” 

Quentin's eyes widened, a luxury he could afford since he was on the phone. “As I recall,” he began smoothly enough, “you didn't like Rupert particularly well when you met him.” 

“Not at all,” Jed replied cheerfully, “It was you I was mad at, and he was just collateral damage. Abbey admired his guts, and that's always a mark in the plus column for me. He was a very studious type, as I recall, not one I'd have pegged for a field Watcher. I'd like to see how he's getting on. Would you mind calling ahead and smoothing the way for me?” 

“Now Jed, are you sure that's a good idea?” Quentin tried. “You travel with a rather large entourage these days, don't you? It would be quite difficult for you to visit Sunnydale on the QT, and the last thing the Slayer needs is undue outside attention. It would be a terrible distraction and could put her in danger.” 

“Nonsense,” Jed waved off the concern. “I would be coming to Sunnydale for a campaign stop, to admire the many natural and historical points of interest that I've already had one of my indispensable research girls looking up for me. I'm sure she'll find several likely photo ops, she's very thorough. And in between campaign events, I'll simply slip away for an hour or two. I haven't entirely lost all my old skills, you know. And if by some miracle I do ascend to the Presidency, it would be nice to know the face of one of my least known frontline soldiers, rather than just her name.” 

Quentin tried to think of another plausible excuse, but he came up empty. He also couldn't simply say no, not when he'd be risking the ire of someone who stood a good chance of actually becoming an extremely powerful man. He sighed and went with the truth. “I'm afraid the fact of the matter is that you cannot meet Miss Summers because she is not in Sunnydale at the moment.” 

“What do you mean?” Jed asked curiously. “Has she been sent on assignment?” 

“Not exactly. She's... well, she seems to have done a runner,” Quentin admitted. “She faced off against a particularly deadly vampire called Angelus two months ago, the sort of extended, messy battle that got her Watcher tortured and a civilian teacher who'd been helping the cause killed. Miss Summers survived the final confrontation and was able to stave off the end of the world, but no one has seen or heard from her since. She left a runaway note for her mother and took some clothes and money, but nobody knows where she's gone. It's damn perplexing.” 

“Don't you have spells to keep track of the Slayer?” Jed asked. “That's how you find them in the first place, isn't it?” 

“Yes, of course there are spells, but most Slayers are highly resistant to general locator spells, a sort of protective camouflage to keep them from being hunted by evil forces.” Sometimes Quentin wished that Jed had finished his Watcher training and didn't need things explained to him, but then he remembered that having Jed as an employee would likely be a nightmare beyond parallel. “There is a specific spell used by the Council to track the Slayer herself, but it only seems to be capable of tracking Miss Lehane in Boston. It appears that the singular situation that led to a second Slayer also passed the mystical signature on to the next in line. Miss Summers is neither fish nor fowl, and though we are operating on the assumption that she is still alive, we have no way to prove it.” 

“That does make it much more difficult,” Jed agreed. “I assume Rupert is out of town as well then, looking for her?” 

“He's done nothing else since he was released from the hospital,” Quentin agreed, unable to keep his tone fully even. “I'm afraid he's gotten rather too attached to his Slayer, almost fatherly in his affections. That's going to make things very difficult for him when he has to send her out to face evil, or when the time comes for her Cruciamentum.” 

“Oh for God's sake, Travers, surely you're not still insisting-” 

“It's a time-honored tradition!” he reminded Jed firmly, cutting him off in the process. “She must be tested, and so must he. You can't say that either of them are exactly making a good show of themselves right now, leaving the Hellmouth unguarded for an entire summer. Assuming she comes back at all, she may still not be fit to leave in such a vital position. Miss Lehane's training is progressing very rapidly, and there may come a time when she is the better choice to guard the Hellmouth while Miss Summers receives further instruction. But how do we know unless we test her?” 

“You could ask her Watcher, perhaps?” Jed suggested acidly. “Isn't that why you put him there in the first place? Or simply trust her record, that if she has defeated all comers for what, three years now, that she will continue to do so?” 

“Which works exactly up until the point where it doesn't,” Quentin pointed out. “In any case, it's all academic at this point. Long summer days make the Hellmouth more quiescent, but that won't last forever. We will have to start making decisions soon. But for now, it's still unguarded and I would advise you and your people to stay well clear of it.” 

Jed sighed. “That's quite disappointing on a number of levels, but I see your point. Too many out-of-town visitors might look like a banquet to the local vampires. I imagine we'll stick closer to Los Angeles and San Diego. You'll let me know if you find her, won't you?” 

“I'm sure word will travel quickly,” Quentin assured him vaguely. “With any luck, you'll have many other things to be worried about then.” 

“Nah, I'll just be a figurehead,” Jed reminded him with a trace of good humor. “Mrs. Landingham will really be in charge, remember?” 

“Ah, true. That makes me think I ought to be a little bit kinder to Irene,” Quentin mused. “Just in case.” 

“It couldn't hurt,” Jed agreed. “We of all people know the hidden power and mystery of women. And speaking of which, my wife is beckoning me, so I'd better be moving along.”

“Of course, give my best to Abbey and the girls,” Quentin replied, hanging up after Jed said one last goodbye. That conversation could've gone better, but it also could've been worse. Jed was never going to develop the stomach of a Watcher, but at least he hadn't started in with any threats this time.

Privately, Quentin rather hoped that Miss Summers didn't see fit to return from her impromptu vacation. Two Slayers was unprecedented, and one thing he'd learned was that things without precedent rarely turned out very well. It might seem like a good thing on paper, but who knew what trouble the splitting of the Slayer line could cause? Right now it was just giving them headaches about trying to find a misplaced Slayer, but any number of worse things could happen. In any case, Watcherless Slayers on the run rarely lasted long. Maybe this would all be tied up before Jed's campaign was even finished.

 

Facilis Descensus Averno: The descent to hell is easy


	23. Praestat Cautela Quam Medela

The grandfather clock was a nice touch, Jed decided as he paced the confines of his new office once again. The ticking was very stentorian, filling the quiet space and marking off the passage of time that would be otherwise almost imperceptible. Through the glass outer doors he could see the North Portico, lit up even at this late hour, and the Secret Service agents who stood there just in case it was necessary to throw themselves in front of a bullet for him. Even after several months of protection during the campaign, it was an incredibly strange idea. He wasn't sure how much he liked it on his own behalf, though he had to admit that he felt a certain peace of mind knowing that his daughters, especially Zoey, were surrounded by highly trained, ultra-competent bodyguards willing to lay down their lives for the girls. He still wasn't wild about the idea of Zoey living on campus at Georgetown, but Abbey had already told him to get used to it. 

He stopped in front of the unlit fireplace, staring into the marble hearth. “Mrs. Landingham!” he yelled experimentally. 

There was silence for a moment before a nearly-invisible door opened and Delores Landingham poked her head in. “Mr. President, I believe you know that you have an intercom on your desk,” she scolded. 

“I just wanted to see if you'd hear me,” he told her with a grin. “Why haven't you gone home yet, anyway? It's already past nine, shouldn't you be wearing your bunny slippers and watching Wheel of Fortune?” He still held out hope that one day he would annoy her enough that she'd slip up and call him Jed. So far it hadn't happened in nearly ten years, but now that he was President, there were all sorts of new opportunities. 

She glared at him. “You still have one more appointment on your schedule, Sir. Nancy McNally would like a few minutes of your time, but she refuses to tell me what it's about. Says it's classified.” Mrs. Landingham huffed, as though such an idea was absurd. It was all theater, since she'd been dealing with and shielding herself from sensitive information since he'd brought her on board at the Governor's office, but he suspected she was doing it mostly to set him at ease in his enormous round office. 

“I suppose if somebody is going to go around claiming to have classified information, the nominee for National Security Advisor is as likely a candidate as any,” he observed mildly. “Though she's not exactly keeping banker's hours. Did she say it was urgent?” 

“She didn't,” Mrs. Landingham informed him, “and I almost got the feeling that she asked for the late meeting hoping that I would tell her no. Whatever she wants to tell you, I think she might not be too eager to have to pass it along. You've gotten all your security briefings already, haven't you?” 

“So far as I know,” Jed answered with a shrug. “Maybe this is the one about the aliens at Area 51. You know I always wondered a little bit. Go ahead and send her in, then go home. I don't want you dragging around the office tomorrow morning!” 

Her huff told him exactly what kind of ridiculous idea that was, but all she actually said was “Goodnight, Mr. President.” 

A few minutes later the door opened again to admit Nancy McNally, dressed in what Jed thought of as White House casual, dark slacks and a cream-colored blouse, her hair pinned into a neat bun. “Good evening, Mr. President,” she began with the ease of somebody who was used to dealing with the lofty reaches of power. If Jed had learned nothing else in the past three days, it was that people were either awed by the office or completely unfazed by the office, with very little in-between. The only exception appeared to be his staffers, who were currently careening between the two extremes depending on how overawed they were feeling about actually being in the White House at any given moment. 

“Good evening, Nancy,” he replied cordially. “You're keeping late hours, I see. Some urgent matter of national security?” 

Now was the moment when Nancy started looking a little uncomfortable. “In a manner of speaking, sir,” she equivocated. “A matter of national security, but not one that you will be able to do much about. This is more an advisory meeting than anything else.” 

Jed was intrigued. “Are you sure about that?” he asked, half-rhetorically. “I was under the impression that I'm now Commander in Chief of an exceedingly powerful armed forces. I would think that there's at least something I could do about most any situation.” 

Nancy grimaced just a little. “Excuse me sir, I misspoke. It's not a situation you ought to do anything about, whether or not you are able to. If you'll just give me a few minutes of your time, I hope I can explain things to you, and then I can answer questions.” 

“That sounds fair,” Jed agreed, walking over to the festive candy-striped couches Abbey had picked out for his office. He supposed they looked nice against the rich blue carpet, but they made him feel vaguely hungry. He took a seat in one of the upholstered chairs and waved Nancy to a seat as well. 

She sat ramrod-straight on the edge of the couch and cleared her throat. “Mr. President, this world is older than you know, and contrary to much legend and lore, it did not begin as a paradise-” 

Jed's eyes brightened with excited interest. “Nancy, are you about to tell me about vampires?” he asked, barely able to suppress a sudden burst of laughter. 

That stopped Nancy in midstream. She stared at him for a minute, mouth opening and closing. “Yes, actually,” she finally managed to get out, though her voice was a little strangled. “Among other things. You know something about them?” 

The question drew Jed up short as well. He hadn't been aware that the US government knew anything at all about vampires, but a simple awareness of their existence did not mean that they were fully read in on all the details. “I know something about them, yes,” he said vaguely, “and demons as well, strange supernatural creatures. But I'm sure it's far from everything. Please continue.” 

“If you're aware of the existence of vampires and demons, I can skip the first few pages of my briefing,” Nancy admitted with a wry smile. “I've been told it's the part that takes the longest, getting the President to believe at all.” 

“You know I always enjoy it when I can make your job easier,” Jed told her benevolently. “What exactly do we know about the supernatural then, and what is to be done about it?” 

“We know that there is a vampire population estimated between fifty and sixty thousand individuals in the United States, a number that seems to fluctuate widely,” Nancy reported. “That's an average of one vampire for every six thousand human beings, though they tend to congregate heavily in large cities and areas of supernatural disturbance. Most vampires seem to seek and kill human targets in what they would consider moderation, hunting like wolves and taking out the most vulnerable members of society. There have been times when vampire activity has become markedly more pronounced in one city or another, but it's usually followed by a decimation in the population and greatly decreased numbers after that.”

“So someone is policing the vampires,” Jed pretended to muse. “And why are we as the government not doing so?” 

“Efforts were made during World War II to study vampires and demons, in the hope of either restoring their humanity or, failing that, bringing them under control,” Nancy explained. “The Army launched the Demon Research Initiative to study the problem, but the entire project eventually dissolved partially from mismanagement, but partially because no successful means were ever encountered to compel a vampire to obey. There have been several clandestine attempts to eradicate vampires in large cities and population centers, but those efforts led to high casualty rates both among personnel and civilians.” She lifted a sealed red folded marked Top Secret. “I have information on some of those efforts here for you, if you care to read them.” 

“This is quite a lot to take in,” Jed told her, and it was true. He had no idea the government had been meddling in the supernatural, or even aware of the supernatural. “This seems like a very hush-hush business as well. I assume none of this is common knowledge?” 

“No sir, Mr. President,” she confirmed. “Of the members of your staff, only Mr. McGarry has clearance high enough to know any of this. You can tell him or not as you choose. The Joint Chiefs receive full briefings, as does the Secretary of Defense and the head of the Secret Service. Beyond that is strictly need-to-know.” 

“And why is that?” he asked, genuinely curious. He knew the reasons for the Watchers Council to maintain their secrecy and their silence, but matters were quite different for a huge federal government. 

“Well for one thing, we don't want to all look nuts,” she pointed out wryly. “But the main concern is keeping civil order throughout the country. Sure, it's been suggested that if we tell the public about vampires, people might stop going out at night and some lives might be saved. But we're also going to see massive civil unrest, people staking anybody they think is suspicious, setting fire to their own homes to keep vampires at bay. We could be looking at witch burnings in the public square if they really get the bit in their teeth.” 

She shook her head. “But beyond that, the secrecy of the supernatural appears to be something the supernatural creatures value as well. A vampire has no sense of morality or pity, but it does have a sense of survival. Their circumspection keeps the violence, and the vampire population, down low enough to stay under the radar. I believe that we would win an all-out war against the supernatural simply by force of numbers, but the cost would be astronomical. And even when all was said and done, we won't have killed all the vampires, so they'll just be back again. There's no win condition in that kind of fight.” 

“I see.” He reached out and took the folder off her pile. “You've given me a lot of food for thought tonight, Nancy. I'll have to read through these, and I'll probably have more questions for you then. One thing, though, have you ever heard of a vampire slayer?” 

“Vampire hunters, sir?” she asked. “Vaguely, there are a few people out there who call themselves that and hire themselves out to take care of problem vampires. Not an occupation that very many retire from, I know that much. Why do you ask, sir?” 

“No reason, just something I heard of,” he said easily. “I appreciate you biting the bullet on this one, I'd much rather hear from you than from Miles Hutchinson.” 

She smiled faintly. “Of course, sir. Anything I can do to help. I don't suppose you're going to tell me how you already know about vampires?” 

“I'm very well read,” he informed her with a grin that he suspected was somewhere in the neighborhood of infuriating. “Maybe someday I'll lend you some of my books. But for now I think we both have enough to think about, and a very early morning tomorrow.” 

“Yes, sir.” Nancy rose along with him and gathered her files. “Ron Butterfield already knows this, but keep it in mind: the Residence is a private home and protected from vampires accordingly. The West and East Wings, however, are places of business. We've only had a problem once, and that was a long time ago, but still be cautious. Good evening, Mr. President.” With that she exited the Oval Office, leaving Jed with the ticking clock and a great deal to think about. 

 

Praestat Cautela Quam Medela: Caution is better than cure


	24. Forma Boni Fragilis Est

The Senior Staff meeting was lively this morning despite being in the Oval Office, apparently it had only taken two years for the staffers to get over their awe of such august surroundings. Today's topic consisted mainly of the nominations for the Federal Election Commission, though Jed caught a few snippets of a side conversation between Sam and Toby in which the former was relentlessly berated for letting the President call a conference room a “magnificent vista.” Jed was willing to admit to some tiny part of the responsibility for that snafu, but not where anybody was going to hear it. Mandy also seemed to be on about something involving pandas at the National Zoo, but nobody seemed to be paying much attention to that. 

“I've got it,” CJ announced good-humoredly about ten minutes into the debate. “We ditch all these candidates and hire Jonathan Levinson. If we really want somebody to spearhead campaign finance reform, he's the guy to do it.” 

Toby scoffed. “You really think you're going to get Jonathan Levinson to sit still in one room long enough to go through the FEC confirmation hearings? Even the paparazzi can't keep track of that guy, he's so busy. We could ask him to consult, but I don't think we'll do any better than that.” 

“No, please don't,” Josh groaned, passing a hand over his face. “Donna already spends approximately eighty percent of her free time mooning over the guy, god only knows what she'd do if he actually showed up at the White House. We don't need flashy geniuses, we just need people who are going to get things done!” 

“Maybe if you let her out of the office once in awhile she could get a real date,” CJ pointed out, “and then she wouldn't need a celebrity crush.” 

“Donna doesn't need to be dating-”

“But just think about it,” Mandy interjected, cutting off Josh's squawked reply. “If we managed to convince him to take a job with the administration, that's as good as an endorsement. A get like that could be worth four or five percent come election time, to say nothing of the fact that midterms are coming up!” 

“Okay, I think we're getting off track here, people,” Leo broke in, raising his voice over the hubbub. “Does anybody have anything actually useful to talk about right now?” 

The door opened quietly and Mrs. Landingham peeked her head in. “Mr. President, the First Lady is waiting to see you as soon as you're available.

“Thank you, Mrs. Landingham,” Jed told her, then looked to his staffers. “I'm not hearing any takers, so all of you can get out of here and go do some work. CJ, Mandy, see if you can sound out Levinson through his people, but let's keep it quiet for now. That'll be all.” 

The group departed with a chorus of “Thank you, Mr. President,” filing out towards Leo's office or into the Outer Office to possibly cadge cookies from Mrs. Landingham's jar. Despite the foibles and squabbles, Jed knew he had an excellent team who all worked very hard to keep the country and the administration on an even keel. By the evening staff meeting, they'd probably have come up with a whole new set of solutions and problems, and possibly even a panda 

For the moment, though, he had other concerns, personified by the woman walking in his door. “What's going on?” he asked as soon as they had privacy.

“I just got off the phone with Liz,” Abbey told him with no preamble. She looked tense, her fingers tightly knotted together, but also somehow resigned. She looked, he thought, like someone who'd gotten bad news she couldn't do anything about. “Annie got her first period today. She's officially in the runing to be a Slayer.” 

Jed sighed, resting one elbow heavily against the Resolute Desk, then dropping his head onto his palm. “We knew it could happen any time,” he reminded her. “Id just hoped she'd be more of a late bloomer. Has Liz talked to Ellen about it?” 

“Yes, apparently Annie talked to Ellen first, not wanting to scare her mother if it wasn't necessary,” Abbey told him, dropping into the chair next to his desk. There was a thread of wry humor in her tone. “Of course that lasted all of about half an hour. Ellen is satisfied with her progress so far, says she's very competent in the basics of vampire slaying and is picking up research skills rapidly. But she's still only thirteen years old, and she's so tiny...” She reached out and grabbed his free hand, squeezing it hard. 

“I know, sweetheart,” he said thickly, raising his head so he could wrap his other hand around hers. “But she's not alone, not so long as she has so many people to take care of her.” He smiled wryly. “It's just one more reason for us to wish Miss Summers the best.” 

“We should be doing more than wishing,” Abbey opined. “We should have her surrounded by a Secret Service cordon at all times.” 

“Would that I could, but that's not how it works,” Jed reminded her. “She has to be able to do her job. I did help facilitate the funding increase for the military and National Guard projects in and around Sunnydale this year, so that's something anyway.” A brief flash of white light had them both blinking, but an instant later the room was entirely normal again. Jed shook himself a little before continuing. “If she comes up against something too big for her to handle, we'll at least be ready with support nearby.”

“Sunnydale,” Abbey mused, “I was just thinking about that place the other day... did someone important used to live there? Someone who would've been helpful? I can't quite pin it down.” 

“Not as far as I know.” He leaned back in his chair. “It's a very strange city, thanks to that Mayor of theirs. Now that he's gone, maybe some of the weirdness will fade away.” Covering up what had happened at Sunnydale High's graduation had been a personal favor to Quentin, one that Jed didn't necessarily feel entirely good about, but it had been necessary. A high school blowing up should've been national news, and they couldn't afford that kind of scrutiny. 

“Let's hope so. Quentin said Buffy's started college this year, I think that's a good sign. If she has time for that, maybe things are a little less dangerous for her.” Abbey's smile was self-deprecating. “I almost feel bad wishing her well solely because her well-being affects my granddaughter's, but the longer she perseveres, the older and stronger Annie has a chance to get. Maybe she'll make it another decade, blow the record out of the water.” 

“Your mouth to God's ear,” Jed told her fervently. He rose from his chair so he could hug her, reassuring her as best he could without words. 

She returned the hug with fierce affection, then stepped back. “I'd better let you get back to work, but I wanted you to know. We'll talk more tonight.” She headed out at a brisk clip, back towards her own work in the East Wing. 

Jed stood thoughtfully in the center of the room for a moment, then walked into the Outer Office. Mrs. Landingham and Charlie were both working at their desks, while Donna lingered in the doorway, checking and rechecking a pile of folders. “Mrs. Landingham,” he said, “I need numbers and figures on our strategic resources in Southern California. Anytime in the next day or so.” 

Mrs. Landingham made a note of that. “I'll have the researchers get right on that, sir. Are you going to be wanting lunch in the Residence today?” 

“Yes, that's fine,” he told her. “I have a phone call over lunch, but I can take it there.” He took another look at Donna, still sorting files with an air of faint distress. “Everything all right there, Donna?” 

Donna jumped at being addressed by the President, looking at him with very wide blue eyes. “Oh, I'm sorry sir! Everything's fine, it's just...” She shook her head. “I have the strangest feeling I've forgotten something and I can't imagine what it would be.” 

“Happens to the best of us,” he assured her with a smile. “Though if Josh ends up headed to Birmingham instead of Baltimore for a meeting, we'll know where to place the blame.” That coaxed a faint smile out of her, even as she hastily straightened her folders. “Oh and also,” he added as the thought struck, “I've got a little project for you, if you're not too busy right now. Could you research the demographic patterns of a town in California called Sunnydale? I'd like to know what the population shift looks like over the last hundred years or so.” 

“Of course, sir, I'll take care of that right away!” Bright-eyed with the thought of a new and important project, Donna hurried back into the warren of bullpens that made up the West Wing. Satisfied, Jed headed back into the Oval Office. There might come a day when he needed to read all his senior people in on the supernatural, and it wouldn't do to not have the relevant data at his fingertips. 

 

Forma Boni Fragilis Est: All that is fair must fade


	25. Deus Quem Punire Vult Dementat

Jed had read through the entire binder twice. He'd watched the video footage several times as well, no matter how much it turned his stomach. He'd made phone calls to the grieving families of lost soldiers and he had no answers to give them. A training accident, that was the cover the military had managed to come up with. A lie nearly as stupid, senseless, and unsatisfying as the truth. A mistake, one originating just below the highest levels of power, one insufficiently questioned, inadequately supervised. But exorbitantly funded, he thought bitterly, thanks in part to a President who believed he was helping.

He tossed the binder aside, letting it skid across his desk till it bumped the small forest of glass paperweights. “Mrs. Landingham!” 

By this point Mrs. Landingham had given up on getting him to use the intercom, no matter how unpresidential she considered his hollering. She appeared at the door within a few moments, whatever acerbic quip she'd been about to make dying on her lips as she studied his face. “You needed something, Mr. President?” 

“Get me Nancy McNally in here at my earliest convenience, would you?” he asked, busying himself with rearranging the paperweights. “I don't care what else she's got on her plate, she's damn well going to move her ass on this one. And get me Miles Hutchinson- no, wait. Don't get him. If I talk to him tonight, somebody's getting punched. I'll talk to Nancy first, and then I'll decide how much I feel like punching a man built like an old linebacker.” 

“I'll keep an icepack ready, sir,” Mrs. Landingham promised as she walked back to her desk. She was back in just a couple of minutes, sooner than Jed had expected. He'd barely had a chance to finish with the paperweights and start glaring at the binder again. “Nancy McNally is on her way, sir. And Quentin Travers is holding on One.” 

“I'll just bet he is,” Jed muttered. “I'll go ahead and take that in here, don't let anyone in until I'm finished.” Once the door closed behind her, he picked up the phone. Not bothering with any pleasantries, he asked “Is your line secure?” 

“Completely,” came Quentin's calm voice over the phone, “and on your end as well. Nobody will be listening in on this particular conversation.” 

“Did you know?” Jed asked, clenching a stray paperweight in one hand. 

“I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific than that,” Quentin chided, his voice maddeningly calm. 

“Don't play games with me tonight, Quint, I'm not in the mood,” Jed warned. “Did you know what they were doing down there?” 

“Some of it,” Quentin admitted carefully. “We knew they were capturing demons and experimenting with them to make them docile and controllable. We knew they were attempting to augment soldiers to make them capable of fighting demons. We did not know about the ADAM project, or Maggie Walsh's ultimate aims.” 

“For god's sake, man!” Jed erupted. “If you knew that much, why didn't you tell anyone? We could've put a stop to all of this before it all unspooled! We lost almost a hundred men down there because nobody at your Council picked up the phone!” 

“Don't blame me for your failures of intelligence,” Quentin snapped. “It's certainly not my job to police the American military for you because you aren't paying attention. And why would I want you to stop a project that might make your soldiers capable of fighting demons? I told you years ago that I would seize any opportunity that presented itself to give the job of the Slayer to trained volunteer soldiers instead of young girls with no option to choose. That was what the Initiative was doing, so far as we knew, and more power to them! The fact that the project collapsed is disappointing, but I put that at the feet of Maggie Walsh's hubris and nowhere else.” 

Jed was quiet for a long minute. He wondered what he would've done if Nancy had brought him the Initiative as a project designed to make the Slayer obsolete. Thought of Annie, just thirteen now, sheltered and happy yet so hideously vulnerable. “So you think it could work, in principle?” he asked, much subdued now. “You think that if we could just do it right, the government could take over the Slaying business?” 

Quentin didn't say anything for awhile. In the silence on the phone line, Jed could hear him pouring liquid into a cup and drinking. “I don't know,” the Watcher finally admitted. “History says no, certainly. Anything more than tangential government involvement with the supernatural tends to lead to disaster, no matter how good the intentions. It seems that something is always interfering, whether it's the hubris of man or the tangles of bureaucracy, or the machinations of some higher power. But I wanted it to work.” 

He sighed heavily. “We're getting old, Jed. I went back in the archives a few months ago and did a count on the number of Slayers in my lifetime. Not counting Miss Summers and Miss Lehane, fifty-two girls have died to protect this wretched world in my lifetime. You've got your Nicki Woods, and then you've got your Joanie Lymans, and then you've got those dozen brave girls who fought the demon army in 1944 and lasted a few days apiece. Is this going to be my legacy, the overseer of endless slaughter?” 

There was enough uncomfortable resonance in the question that Jed didn't really know what to say. He knew the feeling now that came from losing men under his command, however distantly, but the difference was that he was doing everything possible to keep those men alive until they could return to their families. Quentin didn't even have that comforting narrative to hold on to. “Some of them do very well,” he reminded his friend. “Miss Summers has averted a half-dozen apocalypses in what, close to five years now? That's a record to be proud of.” 

Quentin's laugh was mirthless as he took another audible gulp. “And a fat lot of nothing I had to do with most of it! She wants nothing to do with us, you know,” he confided. “We have to keep an eye on her from afar because she won't work with anyone but Rupert Giles.” 

“Well, that was some bad business, you have to admit.” Jed didn't really feel like going another nine rounds with Quentin over the Cruciamentum; they'd gone months without even speaking to each other after he'd learned about the Council's complete failure with Buffy Summers. “You need to hire him back, get them back in the fold again before it's too late.” 

“We're working on it,” Quentin told him cryptically. “These things take time, especially when Rupert has made himself so many enemies among the old Watcher families. They'll all come together next time we all face an existential threat, I can tell you that much. But it won't matter, she'll die anyway, if not this year then next, or the one after that, and he'll fall to pieces and they'll both be forgotten. No monument to fallen Slayers on your National Mall, no parades for my Joanie or any of the rest of them. They'll venerate the soldiers though, they remember their names. If we can pass the monster hunting to them, why the hell shouldn't we?” 

“Because it doesn't work,” Jed reminded him. “The mess with the Initiative made things worse, not better. I imagine that even if I personally went to offer Miss Summers whatever support we could give her, she'd likely spit in my face and I don't think I could blame her. If I'd just known... well, we could've done something!” The frustration was still there, but the edge was duller now. He almost didn't want to punch the Secretary of Defense anymore. 

Quentin laughed again, an awful sound. “And we talk about Maggie Walsh's hubris, yet here we are. I'll let you know when we manage to normalize relations with Miss Summers, at least. She'll come back eventually, she needs us. Give my best to Abbey and the girls.” 

“Goodnight, Quentin.” Jed hung up, feeling a little tingle in his hand as whatever magic had protected the phone line fizzled away. It would be so much easier, he thought, if there were some way to get the government involved without actually having the government in control. He was going to have to think about that problem awhile. Maybe it was time to discuss all of this with Leo and get his tactical expertise as well. Leo and the staffers were all busy right now with the town hall coming up at the Newseum next week, but after that, they'd figure something out. 

 

Deus Quem Punire Vult Dementat: Whom God would destroy, he first drives mad


	26. Etiam Si Omnes, Ego Non

It was after midnight, and Jed knew he ought to be sleeping. Sleep was not always in generous supply around the White House, and with who-knew-what kind of situation brewing up with Reda Nessam and his buddies and their little bottles of nitroglycerin, he'd be wise to take his rest where he could get it. Instead he sat on one of the couches in the West Sitting Hall, idly swirling a squat glass of bourbon in his hand while he stared out the enormous decorative windows into the dark. 

Toby's words from earlier still echoed in his head. “It will appear to many, if not most, as fraud. It will appear as if you denied the voters an opportunity to decide for themselves. They’re generally not willing to relinquish that right, either.” Maybe it had been naive of him, but Jed hadn't expected Toby's anger, nor his sense of righteous betrayal. But Toby was, above all things, a speaker of truths, and if he was their canary in the coal mine on the multiple sclerosis issue then there were dangerous times ahead. This was not the sort of thing he needed to be carrying into a reelection campaign. If there was to be a reelection campaign at all. 

He knew that the staffers were already thinking about it, knew that they considered it a given. Why stop at four years when they were only now starting to get good at it? But Abbey was already talking about what they'd do when they went back to their farm in New Hampshire, subtly reminding him of the promise she'd extracted before the primaries. She was not finding the job of First Lady especially rewarding, especially when a major part of it involved nagging him over his health so he didn't become one of those unfortunate Presidents to die in office. He'd been thinking hard about it already, trying to find a balance, but if Toby was right then there wasn't even a question. It seemed so unfair, to have everything he wanted to do undermined by a disease that had given him flu-like symptoms once or twice in three years. 

His reverie was broken by the sound of the phone in the hallway. Jed glanced over as one of his Secret Service agents walked into the room. “Mr. President, the switchboard has a Quentin Travers for you.” 

Jed did his best to keep his face impassive. “Thank you Mark, I'll take it in here. Close the door, would you?” He slid over to the end of the sofa and picked up the phone, a terribly ornate thing with a handset encrusted in little filigreed ridges. “Do you not have clocks in London anymore?” 

Quentin's harumph indicated that he was not in the mood for jokes tonight. “Do you think I particularly enjoy calling you at five in the morning?” he asked rhetorically. We both need a bit of extra privacy for this conversation, I believe. You for the obvious reasons, and me because several old and distinguished Watcher families would have my head for coming to you with this, possibly literally.” 

“What's going on, Quint?” Jed asked, straightening in his seat and setting the bourbon aside. 

“You still have an army base in Sunnydale, yes?” Quentin asked. “Some other military resources in the area that can be called upon, a National Guard regiment?” 

“Yes,” Jed answered slowly, wondering where this was going. “You're only two hours south of Los Angeles, there's quite a bit we could mobilize if necessary. Is it necessary?” Part of him, a tiny, terrible part, was hoping it was, was hoping that something overwhelmingly important would happen just to take his mind off the possible scandal and focus him on governing again. 

“Not yet.” Quentin's voice was measured, careful. “But you should be ready, whatever that means for American armed forces. There is a new threat in Sunnydale, and I'm not sure Miss Summers is going to be able to handle it, even with our backing. She did come back to us, just as predicted,” he added in an aside. “But it won't matter very much if Glorificus has her way.” 

“Glorificus, what's that?” Jed racked his brain and came up completely empty. “Some sort of greater demon?” Anything that could spook Quentin after all this time was surely not small potatoes.

“She's a god,” came the flat response. “A goddess, rather, and ruler of her own hell dimension. She was overthrown and cast out into our dimension, in an imperfect binding that lasted for a few decades and is now breaking down. And all she wants is to get back to where she came from.” 

“That sounds fairly reasonable to me,” Jed offered. “I'd certainly much rather have a creature like that on her own side of the dimensional wall than sticking around here and causing all sorts of trouble.” 

“Yes, that would be well and good,” Quentin agreed, “except that the way for her to go home involves ripping a large hole in interdimensional space and letting realities bleed together until she's finished passing through. The damage will likely be catastrophic and irreparable, if indeed there's enough of our world left to piece together at all.” 

“Hmm, I see your point.” Jed looked towards the window again, up at the vast blackness of the heavens and the stars invisible behind the glow of security lights. “Do you have a plan worked out?” 

The brief silence on the other end of the phone line spoke volumes. “We are working on several options,” Quentin finally said. “The situation is extremely delicate and I cannot tell you very much, but I do believe that we will be able to stop the world from ripping itself to shreds. Unfortunately, it's entirely possible that there will be collateral damage along the way. History teaches us that stopping the machinations of the gods always comes with a heavy price.” 

“And that's where I come in?” Jed asked wryly. 

“I don't know yet,” Quentin said. “We may not call upon you. There may be no need, or there may be no time. If we do, it will be an absolute last-ditch measure, in the understanding that it will be impossible to keep that kind of operation a secret. But I wanted you to be ready.”

Jed nodded even though Quentin couldn't see him. “I understand. I'll brief the necessary people and they can take the steps to have assistance ready. That sort of thing is a last resort on my side as well, legally the armed forces do not have jurisdiction within the borders of the country, but if it comes to a question of life or death from supernatural forces, I think I'll be able to persuade Congress to see things my way. You'll keep me informed?” 

“As best I can,” Quentin promised. “Now go get some sleep, you're supposed to be running things over there, or at least putting on a show while your Mrs. Landingham governs.” 

“She won't mind if I sleep in a little bit,” Jed promised, “she likes being in charge. But Leo will give me hell all day and it's not worth it. Goodnight, Quentin.” He hung up the phone and picked up the bourbon again, swallowing it down like medicine. If the world did end this year, he supposed that would settle the question about reelection, at least. 

***

Five tumultuous weeks had passed since that midnight conversation. Somehow multiple sclerosis had gone from being something Jed rarely even thought about to being the one phrase on everyone's lips and everyone's minds. Mrs. Landingham was gone, taken from him by a rainy night and a drunk driver, and he'd barely gotten a chance to mourn. Screaming at God in the National Cathedral had been somewhat cathartic, if useless, but there never seemed to be time for him to simply sit with his grief and let it be for awhile. There was so much to do. He'd announced his reelection bid to a packed press conference and now Abbey was furious with him, so much so that she was taking it out on the staff as well. CJ had nearly quit, Sam was hanging by a thread, and the Republican Party was gathering up their leashes to take them all out for a walk. And in the middle of all that had been the occasional phone call from Quentin: “Nothing happening yet, stay alert.” Jed was sure there was much more to the situation than that, but he didn't have any time to go looking for it. 

He was working late in the Oval that night, not on anything pressing but more because he didn't want to go home, when the phone rang on his desk. He picked it up without even bothering to think of how odd it was to get an unannounced phone call, even without Mrs. Landingham around anymore. “Hello?” 

“The goddess is dead.” Quentin's voice was strange, strained and triumphant all at once. “The dimensional rift was closed before it could cause major damage, and the threat is ended.” 

Jed blew out a long, relieved breath. “That's the kind of good news I've really wanted to hear,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Well done! I should've known that you and Rupert and Miss Summers would have it all sewn up. I hope you're at least giving them a week's vacation after this!” 

Quentin sighed. “That, I'm afraid, is the unfortunate part. Miss Summers behaved in an exemplary fashion, giving all she had in order to save the world, in the very best Slayer tradition. She gave her life to close the rift and save us all, and we shan't forget her sacrifice.” 

“Oh.” Jed was quiet for a little bit, his own moment of silence. “When did this happen?” 

“Very early yesterday morning, just before dawn in California,” Quentin replied. “There was a delay in communications, as you might expect. Several of her associates were badly injured in the fighting, and Rupert is, of course, completely bereft. I warned him a thousand times, but he could never, not once in his life, listen to good advice.” Jed couldn't tell if he was more angry or sad about that. “I expect he'll be along by and by to join the old soldiers in a life of directionless moping. Such a waste.” 

Jed wasn't sure what he could say to that, so he moved on to a more pressing topic. “Have you found the new Slayer yet?” 

“No, but we weren't expecting one.” Quentin seemed just as glad for the change in topic. “As far as our witches and seers have been able to ascertain, the line runs through Miss Lehane now. As long as she is alive, there will be no new Slayer.” 

“But I thought... didn't you tell me that she's in prison still?” 

“She is,” Quentin confirmed. “Even with the plea deal she struck, she's likely to be in there another fifteen years before they parole her. Stupid girl, I can't imagine what she was thinking, allowing herself to be locked up in the first place. Now the Hellmouth is unguarded and there is no Slayer available for the foreseeable future!” 

“Do you need me to look into it?” Jed asked, trying not to think what kind of ungodly political headache it would cause to try and get the governor of California to pardon an admitted murderer. It wasn't as though he had much capital to spare these days anyway, but protecting the world was probably worth spending what he did have. “I could make some calls.” 

“No, I don't think so, at least not now. We have a Watcher in the prison, keeping an eye on her while she serves her time. She doesn't think Faith is ready yet, still too volatile and violent,” Quentin told him. “I won't ask you to get someone out of jail who goes on to murder innocents, neither of us needs that on our conscience. We are still considering all the options.” There was an ominous note in his voice. 

Jed jumped on it. “When you say all the options, what do you mean?” he asked intently. 

“The world needs the Slayer,” Quentin reminded him. “Miss Lehane abdicated her responsibility, indeed profaned her calling in the service of evil. She assisted in the rise of a greater demon, and was only stopped because Miss Summers was there to take her down personally. She is unpredictable, emotionally disturbed, has a history of consorting with evil, and is a highly trained, highly skilled killer with human blood on her hands. We are considering all the options.” 

“You can't kill her, Quint,” Jed said firmly. “I won't allow it.” 

“You won't allow it?” Quentin repeated, incredulous. “You have no say in it!” 

“I think you'll find that I do,” Jed countered, his voice cold. “I think you'll find that if anything untoward happens to Miss Lehane while she is in prison, things will become very difficult for you and yours whenever you try to operate in the United States. I think you might also find that our close allies in the British government will have some questions for you as well that you might not like to answer. You can't kill her, Quentin. It's wrong, and I won't have it.” 

“I see,” Quentin's voice was equally frigid. “Once again you're willing to put the good of the one, the selfish, undeserving, wretched one in this case, over the good of the entire world. On your head be it, and I just hope you don't have to live with the blood of the consequences on your head.” He hung up then, not bothering to give his best to Abbey and the girls this time. 

Jed sighed, holding the phone lax in one hand for a minute before setting it back in the cradle. He hoped so too. But there was a line, and although sometimes it was hard to see, and sometimes it seemed as though it moved, Jed would not step over that moral line to order or allow the execution of a human being without so much as a trial. He knew that was wrong, and he wouldn't do it. Sitting in the dim light of his office, he said his usual little prayer for the soul of Buffy Summers, and for her grieving Watcher, and for all of them left behind on this difficult, complicated little world.

 

Etiam Si Omnes, Ego Non: Even if all others, not I.


	27. Dum Anima Est, Spes Est

Jed slid into bed behind Abbey, grateful that even now, with everything that was falling apart in their world, she would still unbend and soften her body to spoon against his in the night. He ran his fingers through her hair, tracing the curve of her ear and the line of her neck as she sighed and closed her eyes. “So did you enjoy your birthday party?” he asked hopefully. 

“You gave me a fanfare,” she muttered into the darkness. “I hate fanfares.” 

“You played the entire Canadian anthem for Donna, I think that was probably a bit worse,” he pointed out with a chuckle. “I'm surprised we didn't find her hiding under a table after that.” 

“No, the girl's got a spine,” Abbey insisted. “Especially when she's been drinking, apparently. Told me a few unpleasant truths while we were having girl talk earlier.” She sighed, a movement Jed could feel through her back. “This place is so big, and your job is so huge, I sometimes feel swallowed up. I sometimes forget that I still make my own decisions, good or bad. I made the decision, as a doctor, to medicate you myself. It may have been wrong, but it was all me. I'm going to live with that.” 

“It doesn't change who you are,” he reminded her, pressing his lips to her shoulder. “I'm sorry about the thing I said with the X-Ray reader.” 

“Oh, that's just you being you,” she told him with a soft chuckle. “If you weren't insufferable at least once per day I'd start to think there was something wrong with you.” 

“Well then, I'm glad to have eased your mind.” He was quiet for a moment. “I spoke with Nancy McNally earlier, she had some very strange news to pass along.” 

“Oh?” Abbey asked, running her hand back and forth over the arm he'd wrapped around her waist. 

“You know how I told you there were a few soldiers from the Initiative disaster that survived, and that they're now putting out supernatural fires here and there?” He waited for her nod. “Apparently one of them got called to Sunnydale recently and ran into Buffy Summers.” 

Abbey shifted around to look at him. “What?” 

“According to his debriefing, he and Miss Summers were 'friendly' while the Initiative was in Sunnydale, but he joined the trouble squad and shipped out after it was shut down. He didn't ever hear she'd died, so when he arrived in Sunnydale to hunt a Suvolte demon, he looked her up and found her.” 

“How can that be?” Abbey asked. “Quentin would've known, and if not him, then surely Rupert would've. Could they have been lying to us?” 

“I don't see to what end.” Jed frowned at the back of her head. “I can't imagine there's anything to gain by it, and Quentin's usually not that skilled a liar.” 

“Well then are they sure it was really her?” 

“That was my question too!” he replied enthusiastically. “I asked Nancy about it, and she had her people pulling records and checking paperwork. There was a burial plot purchased for a B. Summers in May of last year, and the house she was living in was transferred from her name to a trust for her younger sister.”

“I didn't know she had a sister,” Abbey murmured. “What about her mother? 

“Cancer, apparently, just last year as well. I hadn't heard that either.” Jed stroked her hair, as much to soothe himself as her. “So there were some signs she might have died, but there were also plenty of indications that she didn't. She held onto custody of the sister and has been seen at various school events, day and night. She also has a job now at a fast food restaurant. I don't know what the hell Rupert Giles is up to with that nonsense, who ever heard of a Slayer paying her own way?” 

“Saving the world does seem like it should be a full time job,” Abbey agreed. “Maybe he doesn't know?” 

“I don't know,” Jed said thoughtfully. “Agent Finn's report didn't say anything about him being in town, so it's not impossible, I suppose.” 

“Maybe whatever happened made her decide to try and retire,” Abbey suggested. “Or at least break things off for good with the Council. Lord knows I'd understand that.” 

“I told Nancy to do what she could to keep a line of communication open through Agent Finn and anyone else Miss Summers would talk to. And I told her that anything Miss Summers requests, we're going to get it for her if at all possible. It seems like the least we can do.” Jed began tracing lazy circles over Abbey's stomach with his fingertips. 

“That's entirely true” Abbey decided. “Have you talked to Quint about it?” 

Jed shook his head. “We didn't part on particularly good terms last time. I'm sure he'll get over it, but I don't have the time or energy to deal with it right now, not with everything that's already on our plates. He'll come around eventually, he always does.” 

“Mmm,” Abbey murmured noncommittally. “One of you will.” She was silent for a moment. “Jed, are you feeling me up?” 

“Do you want me to be feeling you up?” he asked hopefully. “I mean, it is your birthday.” 

“It's not my birthday,” she reminded him again. “And my birthday is not like Lent, so let's leave that analogy behind.” 

“Then can I celebrate your birthday-eve-eve?” Jed offered, scooting over enough for her to roll onto her back. “Lord John may be an outrageous boor, but he does have a point about your magnificent breasts.” 

Abbey stretched, giving him a feline smile. “You're a politician, maybe I'll let you persuade me.”

 

Dum Anima Est, Spes Est: Where there is life, there is hope.


	28. Ira Furor Brevis Est

Quentin pulled the phone from his pocket when it rang and gave it a suspicious look. He was never going to get used to these infernal machines, but the Council insisted he must not be out of touch when he was traveling. At least his newest assistant had programmed the thing to ring like a proper telephone rather than playing that terrible little beeping melody every time he received a call. The calling number was blocked on the phone's screen, but there were only a select few who had this number and he suspected he knew which one this was. “Travers.” 

“So would you care to tell me why there was an earthquake yesterday morning in Sunnydale?” came Jed Bartlet's unmistakable voice. 

“Because it's in Southern California?” Quentin suggested archly. “It's nice to hear from you too, Josiah, it's been such a long time.” 

“You've apparently been keeping your own counsel in the Council.” Now Jed just sounded irritable. “I had to find out fourth-hand that Miss Summers wasn't nearly as deceased as early reports had claimed. I've also heard more recently that she no longer has a Watcher looking after her, despite the fact that she is orphaned and taking care of a younger sister. What exactly have you been up to out there? Where's Rupert?” 

“It's rather a long story,” Quentin told him, “but it revolves mostly around the fact that Rupert became rather too fatherly to his Slayer.” He refrained from adding any variant on “just like I said would happen,” but it was an act of willpower. 

“You didn't fire him, did you?” Jed growled. “Quint...” 

“Quite the contrary!” Quentin maintained. “I told you how undone he was when Miss Summers was thought to be dead. When she returned alive and generally unharmed, he returned to Sunnydale to take up his post again. Unfortunately he apparently forgot that he was the Watcher to an expert Slayer rather than the father of a twenty-year-old girl who'd dropped out of college, probably because he was in severe denial over the idea that he would inevitably have to bear witness to her real death. When he decided she was becoming too dependent upon him emotionally and financially, he returned to England without informing the Council until such time as an apocalypse was bearing down on them and he needed emergency assistance. Which we provided,” he added with just a touch of self-righteousness. 

“How can a Slayer be too dependent upon her Watcher?” Jed asked, baffled. “It's the job of the Watcher to provide for her. I'd heard she was working in a fast food restaurant but I assumed that was just for some sort of life experience, a sense of normalcy...” 

“I can't presume to tell you what was going on in his head,” Quentin told him, “only that we're all fortunate that the consequences were not more severe than a minor local earthquake.” He looked across the broad lawn to the cottage where Miss Rosenberg was currently resting in a magic-assisted slumber. The Council's alliance with the coven at Devon stretched back many years; they had dealt with cases like hers before although perhaps none quite so powerful. “I can tell you, though, that the situation there is stable for the moment.” 

“So are you going to be sending her a new Watcher?” Jed demanded. “It's not right to make the girl work and save the world all at the same time.” 

“Unfortunately Miss Summers is once again on the outs with the Council, though this time more because of Mr. Giles than on his behalf. I don't believe a new Watcher would be well-received by her or her associates.” He didn't add that no Watcher in his or her right mind would go near Sunnydale these days, given the fate of nearly every Council employee who ventured there. “But I agree with you that she must not be left to fend for herself. Her effectiveness as the Slayer depends on her having the time and resources to train and patrol, none of which is improved by her working a full time job. We're currently exploring options to make sure she gets enough money to live on without tracing it back to us.” 

“I see.” Jed seemed only partially satisfied. “I still feel like we, like I should be doing more to help.” 

“I'm afraid that because you never finished your training, Jed, you're an unsuitable candidate for her Watcher even if you could persuade her to not drop-kick you out of town,” Quentin joked. 

“Might draw a bit of attention, too,” Jed put in. 

“Just a little bit. Maybe once you retire from your current job, you can come back and finish your schooling, be the researcher you always wanted to be.” 

Jed laughed. “I think I'm a little past that now, but thanks.” He paused a second. “Not that it's not tempting some days. Politics is sometimes dirtier and more painful than fighting demons. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair, if you had any.” 

“Now you're just being unkind, so I'm going to hang up on you,” Quentin informed him. “But speaking frankly, do be careful, and watch out for your granddaughter. There have been... I almost hesitate to even call them stirrings among the sensitive. A shadow of a premonition, perhaps, that something is stirring. Some of the Potentials have been having disturbing dreams. It may be very little, or it may be some new danger on the horizon. Keep your eyes open, and give my best to Abbey and the girls.” 

He let Jed say goodbye and then folded the phone closed, putting it back into his pocket. Rupert had accompanied Miss Rosenberg to this idyllic detox center, he was probably still with her now. And Quentin had some questions he needed answered.

 

Ira Furor Brevis Est: Anger is brief madness


	29. Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto

The Situation Room always seemed to be the second-darkest room in the White House, and Jed was never quite sure why. (The first one was of course the White House movie theater, which at least made sense.) If he'd been in charge of arranging the lighting, it would've been much brighter, with maybe some chalkboards and maps on the walls instead of the always-tetchy computerized displays. Of course, when he was actually summoned to the Sit room, he hardly ever had any time to think about the decorations. “What do we know?” he asked briskly as he walked in and moved to the head of the table. 

“It's a terrorist bombing in London,” Admiral Fitzwallace reported, pointing to satellite imagery already up on one of the screens. “A multistory office building in the center of the city was blown to bits about ninety minutes ago, right in the middle of the work day there. Rescue efforts are currently centered on finding and treating people in the surrounded area who were hit with flying debris or falling masonry. The building itself was so comprehensively destroyed that they're focusing on recovery of bodies rather than rescue. They don't expect to find any survivors.” 

“My god,” Jed murmured, looking at the grainy footage, then over at Leo. “Has anyone taken credit for it?” 

“A couple of fringe groups,” Fitzwallace said dismissively, “but this wasn't political. Sir, the building that was destroyed was the headquarters of the Watcher's Council.” 

A brief but pregnant silence settled over the room as these high-ranking military officers absorbed the possible significance of such a strike. It was interrupted only when Leo asked “What the hell is the Watcher's Council?” 

*** 

It took a little while to give Leo even the Reader's Digest version of a supernatural education, and by the end he was looking more than a little shell-shocked. He was nothing if not professional, though, and quickly turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “So if something was able to take out the headquarters of the oldest and most organized force against evil... things... in the world, we can assume it's probably something even worse than they'd seen before,” he summarized. 

“Worse, or at least different,” Jed agreed. “Most supernatural wars aren't waged with conventional weaponry, including explosives. It's a very long story, but it has to do with the balance between good and evil, and nobody wanting a demonic arms race. It looks like whoever did this is ignoring that rule, and managed to breach the wards while doing it.” He took a deep breath. “I'm going to step outside a minute. I need to make a phone call.” 

“Sir?” Leo asked quizzically. 

“It'll only be a minute, I promise. Have Fitz tell you some war stories about vampires,” he encouraged, then headed for the door. It wasn't that cell phones didn't work in the Sit Room, but for some reason he just didn't want to try this call around other people. Jed walked down the secured hall a little ways, buying at least the illusion of privacy from his secret service agents, and called Quentin's number. He got the familiar chirps for an international call, then a polite automatic voice telling him the number was not in service. 

Jed immediately cursed himself for a fool. Quentin's work phone was under god only knew how many tons of rubble right now. He cleared the number and dialed the cell phone number instead, unconsciously holding his breath. It rang and rang, unanswered, until the mechanical voicemail machine picked up. He left a terse message for Quentin to call him, but even as he spoke he knew it was useless. Quentin was a workaholic and a homebody; he didn't travel unless it was absolutely necessary, and he spent most of his life in his office. If he'd been alive and conscious, he'd have answered the phone immediately, or he'd have called Jed himself first. 

Flipping the phone shut, Jed leaned against the wall a moment and stared out into nothing. He couldn't comprehend the idea of the Watcher's Council being gone, much less his oldest friend being dead. Both had been the sort of institutions that seemed entirely likely to endure forever. What would this mean for the world? What would this mean for the training and education of future Slayers? 

A door down the hallway opened and footsteps echoed in the hallway. Jed looked up to see Leo coming towards him. “Mr. President, they need you in the room,” he reminded Jed quietly. 

“Yeah,” Jed muttered. “This is a wretched job, Leo. Why did I want to get reelected in the first place?” 

“Because you wouldn't want anybody else making the big decisions about this kind of thing,” Leo reminded him as they walked through the heavy doors and back into the Situation Room. 

“Do we know anything about the Slayers?” was Jed's first question upon reentering the room. “What kind of shape are they in? Are they both still alive?” 

“Very little, sir,” Admiral Fitzwallace answered, “but we were able to ascertain that Faith Lehane is alive and still in the custody of the California Women's Correctional Facility. Our current intel suggests that Miss Summers is still alive as well, but we have no real intelligence assets in the town at the moment. With Agent Finn and Dr. Finn both on urgent assignment in South America, we can't even access that one point of contact.” 

“All right, we need to do better than that,” Jed decided. “Maintaining a respectful distance is one thing, but I'm tired of being caught with our pants down. I want a source of continuing, reliable intelligence from Sunnydale as soon as can be safely arranged. If we can establish a relationship with Miss Summers all the better, but at the very least I want to know what's happening out there.” 

“Yes sir,” said several of the officers, though the looks they shot each other across the table said they weren't much looking forward to the effort. Fitzwallace picked up the thread again. “We do still need a response to the bombing itself.” 

“Right,” Jed agreed belatedly, his eyes drawn once again to the photos. “I'll call with my condolences and offers of assistance. In the meantime, raise the terrorism threat assessment and increase security at airports and government buildings, the usual. Even if it's not normal terrorism, it can't hurt. Let me know if you learn anything else about the bombing or about Sunnydale.” He rose, the rest of the room coming up with him, and headed out with Leo at his heels. 

“So vampires?” Leo murmured, sotto voce, as they walked. “All this time, and I've never known anything about it? How did you find out?” 

“That's a very long story,” Jed told him ruefully. “I'll tell you some other time.”

 

Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto: Let the welfare of the people be the highest law.


	30. Scientia Potentia Est

February was a particularly dreary month, Jed decided, looking out the long window behind the Resolute Desk, and this February seemed more dreary than most. Maybe it was the failed trip to Orange County, maybe it was letdown after the State of the Union, maybe it was just the absence of Sam in the office to provide hopeful commentary and comic relief. Or maybe it was just the weather, how the hell did he know? He was well on the way to working himself into a real funk when the door opened and Nancy-the-secretary announced “Director McNally is here to see you, Sir.” 

Jed turned, welcoming the distraction even if Nancy-the-National-Security-Advisor hardly ever visited with good tidings. “By all means, send her on in,” he invited. No sooner had the words left his mouth than Nancy-the-National-Security-Advisor was barreling through the door, almost putting poor Nancy-the-Secretary on the floor in the process. 

The instant the door was closed, Nancy began speaking. “Mr. President, we have reestablished contact with the Slayer in Sunnydale.” 

Jed straightened, abandoning any plans to tease Nancy about her unfailing grace. “What happened?” 

“She contacted a military phone drop line that Agent Finn must have given her.” A faint trace of a smile crossed Nancy's face. “Miss Summers has many skills, but subterfuge is not one of them. I'll play the transcript for you later. But she's obviously looking to get in touch. I'd like to put a team on the ground in Sunnydale. They can make contact with the Slayer, and also take the opportunity to assess the situation in the Initiative compound. I wasn't made privy to details of the cleanup at the facility, but I've heard rumors that it was incomplete and possibly worse. I'd like to know for sure.” 

Jed thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “All right, you know who you need to deal with to get an appropriate team put together and assigned, so I'll leave that in your hands. But I want you to remind them that whatever Miss Summers wants, she gets. If it involves high crimes and misdemeanors you should run it by me first, but anything other than that, we're just helping her run her show. Have you gotten any intelligence set up there yet? Do you have any idea why she might be looking for our attention now?”

Nancy looked pained. “Of a very limited sort,” she admitted. “Sunnydale is not a town with a modern technological infrastructure that we can exploit, and putting personnel on the ground for extended periods is extremely dangerous. But we have found an ongoing weblog series with video uploads that purports to be maintained by a young man actually living in Miss Summers' house.” 

“A wiblog series?” Jed repeated, baffled. 

“Weblog,” Nancy repeated. “Something like an online diary that is visible to anyone who cares to read it.” 

“Seems to defeat the purpose of a diary, doesn't it?” Jed asked with a frown. 

“You know kids these days,” Nancy joked. “We've been able to run down the identity of the author, one Andrew Wells. He's a Sunnydale native, but he's also a fugitive from the law, wanted for questioning in the death of at least one person. Which,” she allowed, “given that this is Sunnydale, could mean anything from him being one of the few criminals the police ever managed to actually catch, to him helping the Slayer and killing a vampire in the sight of someone not in the know. In any case, he sounds like a nutcase in most of his entries and uses ridiculous codenames, but we've pieced together some theories. Here's the most recent entry.” 

She cleared her throat, rolled her eyes once preemptively, and read. “Gentle readers, I bring news of much turmoil in the House of Revels, even more than the great and terrible Shampoo Shanghai War of last week. The wise and sagacious Merlin continues to bring us more new girls for protection, lest they too meet the sad fate of their sisters in the blood, but we are running out of sleeping bags and the situation looks grim. Although he has taken them to the desert for a great and powerful ritual of soul seeking, even now the house is not quiet, for the Lady of the Blade and her dark consort are sore afflicted by his plight. His cries of pain day and night are horrible to hear, and it's becoming very unpleasant to try and do laundry in the basement with all the screaming. If something is not done soon, I fear for his sanity and even for his pale simulacrum of life. Oh, and big news! The Red Witch has definitely hit it off with Poor Little Rich Girl, more on that situation as it develops. I shall return soon with further tidings, but until then, farewell.” 

Jed was silent for a moment. “And that's a weblog?” he finally asked. 

“I suspect it's an outlier example,” Nancy informed him dryly. 

“But you say it's some kind of code, and you were able to extract some sense from the gibberish?” 

“We're fairly sure,” she replied. “From context clues in previous entries as well as a few other intelligence assets we've managed to extract, we believe that the Lady of the Blade is Miss Summers and the Dark Consort is a vampire named Spike, sometimes referred to as Will-”

“William the Bloody,” Jed finished overtop of her. “That can't be right, he's a monster. He's the vampire who killed Nicki Wood.” 

“Yes sir,” Nancy agreed. “However, his other known designation was as Hostile 17 of the Initiative Program. He was implanted with a neural programming chip that caused intense pain whenever he took any violent action against a human. It seems that the chip actually did work to modify his behavior, as he's reported to have assisted the Slayer on her team on several occasions.” 

“I find that hard to believe,” Jed murmured, but let it go. “So if he's the dark consort... something's wrong with him?” 

“It sounds that way.” Nancy picked up a file of papers she'd set on the desk. “Looking through the research papers the Initiative generated, none of the prototype chips were designed to last this long in vampire brains. It's entirely possible that the chip is nearing its end-of-life and therefore malfunctioning. If it were to become stuck in the activated position, it could be both agonizing and debilitating.” 

“I would say it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow, but if Miss Summers is concerned about him, there must be some reason.” Jed sighed. “”More things on heaven and earth than dreamed of in my philosophy, that's for damned sure.” 

“You and me both, Mr. President,” Nancy agreed. “The timing is good too, because if Mr. Wells' entries are to be believed at all, something bad is coming to Sunnydale. I don't think he knows what it is, I'm not sure any of them do, but there's a growing oppressiveness that worries me. I think we'll know more when we get a sitrep from the ground.” 

“I believe you're right.” Jed took the printouts from her, looked at the floridly-written entry. “Do you have any idea what he means when he talks about the girls being brought in?” 

“Not really, sir,” she admitted. “He makes a number of references to them, calling them little ones, seedlings, sisters in blood to Miss Summers, though we can't run down any living female relatives in her family. They seem to be young teenagers, eight or ten of them, who are in danger that he isn't revealing much about.” 

Jed paused, running his fingers back and forth over the words. “Could they be potential Slayers?” he finally asked. 

“I don't know, Mr. President,” Nancy shrugged. “I know very little about that side of the demon-hunting world. I suppose if something is trying to hunt down the Slayer, it could do worse than starting out by killing all her replacements.” 

“Annie has been having terrible dreams,” he murmured, still studying the paper. Nancy made an inquiring noise, prompting him to look up. “Annie, my granddaughter. She's a Potential Slayer, did I never mention that?” The stunned look on Nancy's face gave him a moment's amusement, which was more than he'd had the rest of the day. “If something is coming to hurt Potentials...” 

“I doubt that any of those young women in California have Secret Service details,” Nancy pointed out. “Does Ron Butterfield know?” She looked relieved when Jed nodded. “Talk about this with him, maybe see about increasing her detail for awhile. Better not to take any chances.” 

“That's certainly true.” He handed the papers back to Nancy. “Let's not let any grass grow on this one, and let me know the minute you learn anything from Miss Summers. We clearly need to know much more about what's happening in Sunnydale.”

 

Scientia Potentia Est: Knowledge is Power


	31. Extremis Malis Extrema Remedia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! This is the last chapter of my fic-a-day project, and the last of the nineteen chapters I posted today here at A03. If you were reading along for the first dozen chapters, you'll get to the new stuff by starting at Chapter 13. More notes after the story!

The Presidential Limousine was not a small vehicle by any stretch of the imagination, but with eight adults packed into it, it was downright claustrophobic. Jed found himself crammed cheek-by-jowl with Abbey in the middle of the forward-facing seat, with an agent on each side of them next to the windows. Ron Butterfield and another agent sat directly across from them, with CJ and Josh crammed into opposite corners as the car sped back towards the White House. The DNC fundraiser they'd all been attending was probably completely ruined, an idea he found almost funny. He noticed that Josh was pale and sweating after being shoved into the motorcade while agents shouted and police sirens wailed, but there was no time to look after him now. “What do we know, Ron?” he asked insistently. 

“The first attack was just after sunset and happened at the Westin home in New Hampshire,” Ron explained tersely. “With the whole family at home, the Secret Service presence was at maximum level, but three agents were still killed before the attackers were repelled. Approximately five minutes later, attackers with similar descriptions broke down the door to Zoey Bartlet's dorm room. She was not in the room at the time. The relief agent stationed in the room across the hall was able to wound one as they were leaving the building, but all the hostile forces in both attacks escaped.” 

“Who was it?” Abbey demanded, her voice harsher than usual from her rapid breathing. “Was it-” 

“Mrs. Bartlet,” Ron said meaningfully, glancing at CJ who was listening intently and Josh who was staring blankly out the window, “we are exploring several possibilities...” 

“Dammit, this is not the time for putting up walls on information!” she insisted, squirming so she could look Jed in the eye. “Keeping quiet was supposed to be a safety measure, and look how well that's turning out. I want to know what's happening!”

Jed sighed. “Go ahead, Ron,” he ordered. “I'll deal with the clearance issues myself later. CJ, if you could save all your questions till the end, it would save us some time.” 

Ron didn't look entirely convinced, but complied anyway. “The agents reported confronting men and women dressed in brown robes, carrying bladed weapons, axes, and crossbows. All of the hostiles appeared to have their eyes sewn shut with thick black cord, though this didn't affect their ability to fight. At least three agents reported successful hits to body mass with their weapons, but the attackers didn't even slow down. We're not exactly sure why they backed off at all in New Hampshire, only that they did. The Treasury Department's consulting witch says that they may be a species of hybrid demon called Bringers, but couldn't tell us much more.” 

“Shit,” Abbey muttered. 

“Where are my daughters now?” Jed asked urgently. 

“Zoey's plane is still in the air from Miami. The plane has been diverted to Andrews, where she and the Comte de Bourbon will be met by an expanded detail,” Ron reported. “The Westin family has been moved to an FBI safehouse in Hanover while we explore options for their continued protection.” 

“I want them all in the White House as soon as possible, whatever you have to do,” Jed insisted. “Get them on a plane and get them here.” 

“I'm afraid that's not possible, Mr. President,” Ron told him with what seemed to be genuine regret. “We have credible threats against your daughter and granddaughter, but not against you or the government. It is against department policy to bring threatened principals into prolonged contact with the President if at all possible. Sir, bringing your daughters in now could invite a public attack on the White House by a supernatural force who we are not entirely sure how to kill. It would be catastrophic in five different ways.”

“But there was no credible threat made against Zoey,” Jed pointed out. “She's much too old!” 

“Yes sir, but the attack changes her status automatically,” Ron replied. “It's possible that the hostiles are using a different metric for determining potential than the Watcher's Council.”

Jed fumed. “Well then what the hell do you expect me to do?” he demanded. “It sounds like Secret Service protection is a chancy proposition at best, and none of them can go back to their homes until and unless this mess is dealt with! We still don't know for sure who is targeting Potentials or why, and we have no idea how long it's likely to go on! I can't just sit by and do nothing, Ron!” 

“Mr. President, we are going to do everything in our power to keep your family safe from any threat, supernatural or otherwise,” Ron attempted to reassure him. “Right now we're operating at a disadvantage due to lack of knowledge, but with further research-” 

“What about Sunnydale?” Abbey broke in suddenly, giving Ron an intent look. 

“Sunnydale, ma'am?” Ron asked politely. 

“That's where the other Potentials went, right?” she insisted. “We know there are at least a dozen of them living there right now, where they can be protected by the most knowledgeable experts available. Why can't we do that?” 

Ron's usual poker face flickered a little, his eyes widening. “Ma'am, Sunnydale California is easily one of the most dangerous towns in America, even before the current crisis began. I wouldn't recommend-” 

“The current crisis does change quite a bit, doesn't it?” Abbey pressed. “My girls know how to deal with vampires. Zoey and Annie have trained for it all their lives. This situation is different, and it's more than we know how to deal with. Two months ago I'd have sent them to London to the Watcher's Council, but that's not an option now. The only recognized expert we have access to is in the same town as the most powerful weapon against supernatural evil. I don't understand why we wouldn't go there for help!” 

“She has a point, Ron,” Jed agreed heavily. He liked this idea even less than the safe house in Hanover, but Abbey was right. Until they had a better idea what was happening, Zoey and Annie were at grave risk, and it was unlikely the Slayer and her team would respond to a fact-finding mission from the government. Sunnydale must offer some form of protection, or why would all the remaining Potentials be congregating there? 

“And of course if they go, I'll be going with them,” Abbey continued as though this were a natural, inarguable conclusion to reach. “They'll need someone looking after them, and I still know my way around a wooden stake.” 

Ron looked incredibly pained. “Ma'am, vetting a location for a visit from the First Lady takes days under the best of circumstances, to say nothing of moving your detail. There will be publicity-” 

“I'm taking a vacation with my daughter and granddaughter! The American people can't be too interested in that. Anyway, Jed can always do something distracting like start a war or let Toby give the press briefings. I'm not leaving my girls out there alone on this, it's just not going to happen.” 

“We'll discuss it,” Jed promised, squeezing her hand. “In the meantime, Ron, get someone out to Sunnydale and find appropriate safe lodging, then see about getting Zoey and Annie moved out there as quickly and safely as possible. Liz may insist on coming too, but don't let that idiot Doug bring Gus along. They shouldn't be in any danger on their own.” 

“We'll start working right away,” Ron promised, and began murmuring into his radio. They were nearly at the White House by now, the first cars of the motorcade nearly at the gate. 

“Okay.” Jed was rather startled when CJ spoke up suddenly, having nearly forgotten about her presence. She was looking more than a little shell-shocked, staring between him and Abbey and Ron. “Now do I get to ask my questions? Because I have some.” 

 

Extremis Malis Extrema Remedia: Extreme remedies for extreme ills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote! =D I know this is pretty obvious sequel-bait, but there was just no way I could fit the entire plot in my mind into one set of vignettes, especially one with only three (now two!) POV characters. So far this story has resoundingly failed to find its audience so I don't know when I will be starting work on the sequel, but I do have notes written down so I do not forget. I hope you've enjoyed the story, feedback is always incredibly encouraging and motivating!


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